***This is going to be a mid-monthly tradition now, I guess. At least until social distancing standards are completely abandoned. Maybe even after that. Some updates will be bigger than others – it all depends on what differences I can find. I've also added HBO Max selections this month.***
Are you self isolating? Are you thinking about broadening your cinematic horizons? Perhaps you’d like to learn about a specific genre? I’m here to help. Staying in the East, this time we’re talking about Japanese cult movie titles available to stream RIGHT NOW.
Netflix and Hulu’s selection is weak, but Amazon Prime is pretty good, as are various free streaming services available via Roku, Amazon Fire, Chromecast, et cetera. I compared a bunch and, for the sake of simplicity, I found the best in terms of content and video quality to be Tubi, Midnight Pulp (a "+" will be included wherever subscription fees apply), VUDU’s free selections, The Roku Channel, Shout Factory TV (though most of their titles can also be watched via Amazon Prime), Popcorn Flix, Dark Matter TV (again, a "+" will be included wherever subscription fees apply). And, of course, this is Criterion Channel’s time to shine. Shudder doesn’t do too badly, either. In fact, I’m not covering samurai movies, because Criterion Channel has a heck of a monopoly in that regard and I’m pretty sure every single one available is great (including the complete, cult-friendly Lone Wolf and Cub and Zatoichi series). Additionally, I’m not including Akira Kurosawa movies. If you have access to Kurosawa movies you haven’t seen yet, just watch them. Update: I will, however, be adding the things Criterion Channel is currently sharing with HBO Max.
Be warned – all of the free apps have ad breaks (I know, it sucks) and the video quality is inconsistent from app to app. Sometimes it's genuine HD, other times, it's sub-VHS. Apologies if I’ve suggested something with particularly grim A/V quality and be aware that the availability is based on the research I did on May 6, 2020. Given the nature of streaming media, I imagine very few of these titles will be available in perpetuity. I've included links to my own reviews of some of these films and be aware that, despite my classifications below, complete director filmographies are not currently available free/subscription streaming.
Kinji Fukasaku Movies
Battles Without Honor and Humanity/Yakuza Papers Series: Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973), Hiroshima Death Match (aka: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima, 1973), Proxy War (1973), Police Tactics (1974), Final Episode (1974) – Amazon Prime
New Battles Without Honor and Humanity Series: New Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1974), Head of the Boss (1975), Last Days of the Boss (1976) – Amazon Prime
Cops vs. Thugs (1975) – Amazon Prime and Midnight Pulp +
Doberman Cop (1977) – Amazon Prime
Message from Space (1978) – Amazon Prime
Virus (1980) – Amazon Prime, Midnight Pulp, and Popcorn Flix
Legend of the Eight Samurai (1983) – Amazon Prime
Battle Royale (2000) – VUDU Free and Tubi
Seijun Suzuki Movies
The Boy Who Came Back (1958) – Amazon Prime
Voice Without a Shadow (1958) – Amazon Prime
Smashing the 0-Line (1960) – Amazon Prime
The Madness of Youth (1960) – Criterion Channel
Take Aim at the Police Van (1960) – Criterion Channel
Tokyo Knights (1961) – Amazon Prime
The Man with a Shotgun (1961) – Amazon Prime
Teenage Yakuza (1962) – Amazon Prime
Youth of the Beast (1963) – Criterion Channel
Gate of Flesh (1964) – Criterion Channel
Born Under Crossed Stars (1965) – Midnight Pulp
Story of a Prostitute (1965) – Criterion Channel
Fighting Elegy (1966) – Criterion Channel
Tokyo Drifter (1966) – Criterion Channel
Branded to Kill (1967) – Criterion Channel
Kagero-za (1981) – Amazon Prime
Yumeji (1991) – Amazon Prime
Pistol Opera (2001) – Tubi
Takashi Miike Movies
Shinjuku Triad Society (1995) – Amazon Prime and Midnight Pulp
Rainy Dog (1997) – Amazon Prime and Midnight Pulp
Ley Lines (1999) – Amazon Prime and Midnight Pulp
Audition (1999) – Shudder
Dead or Alive Series: Dead or Alive (1999), Dead or Alive 2: Birds (2000), Dead or Alive: Final (2002) – Amazon Prime and Midnight Pulp +
Happiness of the Katakuris (2001) – Amazon Prime and Midnight Pulp
Ichi the Killer (2001) – Shudder
Graveyard of Honor (2002) – Midnight Pulp
Gozu (2003) – Amazon Prime and Midnight Pulp
Three… Extremes (anthology co-directed with Fruit Chan and Park Chan-wook, 2004) – Amazon Prime
Sukiyaki Western Django (2007) – Amazon Prime, VUDU Free, and Tubi
Yakuza: Like a Dragon (2007) – Fandor
Thirteen Assassins (2010) – HULU
Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011) – Amazon Prime and VUDU Free
Over Your Dead Body (2014) – Shudder
Yakuza Apocalypse (2015) – VUDU Free
Blade of the Immortal (2017) – HULU
First Love (2019) – Amazon Prime
Meiko Kaji Movies
Retaliation (Yasuharu Hasebe, 1968) – Amazon Prime
Outlaw: Gangster VIP 2 (Keiichi Ozawa, 1968) – Amazon Prime
Stray Cat Rock Series: Alleycat Rock: Female Boss (Yasuharu Hasebe, 1970), Wild Jumbo (Toshiya Fujita, 1970), Sex Hunter (Yasuharu Hasebe, 1970), Machine Animal (Yasuharu Hasebe, 1970), and Beat ’71/Crazy Rider ‘71 (Toshiya Fujita, 1971) – Amazon Prime
Blind Woman’s Curse (Teruo Ishii, 1970) – Amazon Prime and Midnight Pulp
Female Prisoner Scorpion Series: #701: Scorpion (Shunya Ito, 1972), Jailhouse 41 (Shunya Ito, 1972), Beast Stable (Shunya Ito, 1973), Grudge Song (Yasuharu Hasebe, 1973) – Amazon Prime and Shudder
Lady Snowblood Series: Lady Snowblood (1973) and Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance (1974, both directed by Toshiya Fujita) – Criterion Channel and HBO Max
(She also appears in Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima)
Shinya Tsukamoto Movies
Tetsuo the Iron Man (1989) – Shudder
A Snake of June (2002) Midnight Pulp +
Vital (2004) – Midnight Pulp +
Nightmare Detective 2 (2008) – Midnight Pulp
Tetsuo the Bullet Man (2009) – HULU
Kiyoshi Kurosawa Movies
The Guard from the Underground (1992) – Fandor
Cure (1997) – Criterion Channel
Pulse (2001) – Tubi
Doppelganger (2003) – Tubi and Midnight Pulp
Loft (2005) – Tubi and Midnight Pulp
Creepy (2016) – Amazon Prime
Before We Vanish (2017) – HULU
Samurai Franchises
Hanzo the Razor: Sword of Justice (Kenji Misumi, 1972), The Snare (Yasuzō Masumura, 1973), and Who’s Got the Gold (Yoshio Inoue, 1974) – Criterion Channel and HBO Max
Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance (Kenji Misumi, 1972), Baby Cart on the River Styx (Kenji Misumi, 1972), Baby Cart to Hades (Kenji Misumi, 1972), Baby Cary in Peril (Buichi Saito, 1972), Baby Cart in the Land of Demons (Kenji Misumi, 1973), White Heaven in Hell (Yoshiyuki Kuroda, 1974) – Criterion Channel and HBO Max (the re-edited American release, Shogun Assassin, is also available via Criterion Channel)
All 25 original Zatoichi movies are on Criterion Channel exclusively.
Bloodthirsty Trilogy
The Vampire Doll (Michio Yamamoto, 1970) – Amazon Prime
Lake of Dracula (Michio Yamamoto, 1971) – Amazon Prime
Evil of Dracula (Michio Yamamoto, 1974) – Amazon Prime
Japanese Horror, Ghost Stories, Other Weirdo Genre Stuff
This is a quite large and quite broad category, so take this as recommended movies that I assume haven’t been as widely seen as, say Ringu (1998) or Ju-on (2002).
Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953) – Criterion Channel and HBO Max
Tokaido Yotsuya kaidan (Nobuo Nakagawa, 1959) – Criterion Channel
Jigoku (Nobuo Nakagawa, 1960) – Criterion Channel
Matango (Ishirō Honda, 1963) – Amazon Prime
Kwaidan (Masaki Kobayashi, 1964) – Criterion Channel and HBO Max
Onibaba (Kaneto Shindō, 1964) – Criterion Channel and HBO Max
The Face of Another (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1966) – Criterion Channel
Kuroneko (Kaneto Shindō, 1968) – Criterion Channel
The Living Skeleton (Hiroshi Matsuno, 1968) – Criterion Channel
Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell (Hajime Sato, 1968) – Criterion Channel
Wolf Guy (Kazuhiko Yamaguchi, 1975) – Shudder and Midnight Pulp
Hausu (aka: House; Nobuhiko Ōbayashi, 1977) – Criterion Channel and HBO Max
Evil Dead Trap (Toshiharu Ikeda, 1988) – Midnight Pulp
Battle Girl: Living Dead In Tokyo Bay (Kazuo Komizu, 1991) – Midnight Pulp
Rubber's Lover (Shozin Fukui, 1996) – Midnight Pulp +
Organ (Kei Fujiwara, 1996) – Midnight Pulp +
Versus (Ryûhei Kitamura, 2000) – Fandor
Stacy: Attack of the Schoolgirl Zombies (Naoyuki Tomomatsu, 2001) – Midnight Pulp
Karaoke Terror (Tetsuo Shinohara, 2003) – Midnight Pulp
Marebito (Takashi Shimizu, 2004) – Midnight Pulp and VUDU Free
Rampo Noir (Akio Jissoji, Suguru Takeuchi, Hisayasu Satô, and Atsushi Kaneko, 2005) – Midnight Pulp
The World Sinks Except Japan (Minoru Kawasaki, 2006) – Midnight Pulp
One Cut of the Dead (Shinichiro Ueda, 2017) – Shudder
Other Crime/Yakuza Movies
Rusty Knife (Toshio Masuda, 1958) – Criterion Channel
The Sun’s Burial (Nagisa Oshima, 1960) – Criterion Channel
Danger Pays (Kô Nakahira, 1962) – Amazon Prime and Midnight Pulp
Black Lizard (Umetsugu Inoue, 1962) – Criterion Channel
Cruel Gun Story (Takumi Furukawa, 1964) – Criterion Channel
Iron Finger (Jun Fukuda, 1965) – Criterion Channel
A Colt Is My Passport (Takashi Nomura, 1967) – Criterion Channel
Violence at Noon (Nagisa Oshima, 1966) – Criterion Channel
Massacre Gun (Yasuharu Hasebe, 1967) – Amazon Prime and Midnight Pulp
Golden Eyes (Jun Fukuda, 1968) – Criterion Channel
Vengeance is Mine (Shohei Imamura, 1979) – Criterion Channel and Fandor
Onimasa: A Japanese Godfather (Hideo Gosha, 1982) – Midnight Pulp
Godzilla Movies
Godzilla (Japanese: Gojira; Ishirō Honda, 1954) – Criterion Channel and HBO Max
Godzilla Raids Again (Motoyoshi Oda, 1955) – Criterion Channel and HBO Max
Mothra vs. Godzilla (Ishirō Honda, 1964) – Criterion Channel and HBO Max
Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (Ishirō Honda, 1964) – Criterion Channel and HBO Max
Invasion of the Astro-Monster (Ishirō Honda, 1965) – Criterion Channel and HBO Max
Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (Jun Fukuda, 1966) – Criterion Channel and HBO Max
Son of Godzilla (Jun Fukuda, 1967) – Criterion Channel and HBO Max
Destroy All Monsters (Ishirō Honda, 1968) – Criterion Channel and HBO Max
All Monsters Attack (Ishirō Honda, 1969) – Criterion Channel
Godzilla vs. Hedorah (Yoshimitsu Banno, 1971) – Criterion Channel and HBO Max
Godzilla vs. Gigan (Jun Fukuda, 1972) – Criterion Channel and HBO Max
Godzilla vs. Megalon (Jun Fukuda, 1973) – Criterion Channel and HBO Max
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (Jun Fukuda, 1974) – Amazon Prime, Criterion Channel, and HBO Max
Terror of Mechagodzilla (Ishirō Honda, 1975) – Amazon Prime, Criterion Channel, and HBO Max
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (Takao Okawara,1993) – Roku Channel
Godzilla (Roland Emmerich, 1998) – Netflix
Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (Masaaki Tezuka, 2000) – Roku Channel
Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla (Masaaki Tezuka, 2002) – Roku Channel
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (Michael Dougherty, 2019) – HBO Max
Other Kaiju Movies
Rodan (Ishirō Honda, 1956) – Criterion Channel and HBO Max
Dogora (Ishirō Honda, 1964) – Amazon Prime
War of the Gargantuas (Ishirō Honda, 1966) – Criterion Channel and HBO Max
The X from Outer Space (Kazui Nihonmatsu, 1967) – Criterion Channel and HBO Max
Space Amoeba (Ishirō Honda, 1970) – Amazon Prime
(You didn’t hear it from me, but Mothra and the Gamera and Daimajin series might be on YouTube for free...)