Prince of Space (1959)
Jun 24, 2007Japanese Space Opera
Japanese film about a superhero defending Earth against alien invaders that travels into incredibly bad movie stakes with its painfully cheap effects and frequent dialogue howlers
Toei
Invasion of the Neptune Men (1961)
Nov 3, 2008Alien Invasion/Japanese Space Opera
A Japanese SF film with Sonny Chiba as superhero fighting off alien invaders. This has a tatty cheapness that takes it well and truly places into bad movie territory.
The Green Slime (1968)
Oct 9, 2003Alien Nasty
Cheesily entertaining film about a crew aboard a space station fighting off an alien monster. Cited as one of the films that influenced Alien. With a screenplay co-written by Batman co-creator Bill Finger
Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (1972)
Nov 21, 2000Women's Prison Breakout/Revenge
A cultish Japanese Women in Prison film made with a wild ferocity as a female prisoner makes an escape and leads a team of women as they take revenge against men who seeks to abuse them
Message from Space (1978)
Mar 6, 2001Japanese Space Opera
Japanese attempt to jump aboard the Star Wars fad, a vigorous and colourful retelling of The Seven Samurai as a space opera
Taro, The Dragon Boy (1979)
Nov 28, 2004Anime/Young Boy's Adventures
Likeable and charming Japanese anime for children about a young boy of hubris who sets out on a series of adventures
Time Slip (1981)
Jun 9, 2003Soldiers Thrown Back in Time to Feudal Japan
Highly entertaining Japanese film about modern soldiers thrown back to feudal Japan and deciding to overthrow the shogunate
Power Rangers: The Movie (1995)
Nov 3, 2001Teen Power-Suit Superheroes
Film spinoff from the Mighty Morphin Powers Rangers tv series that became a fad in the 90s. All the same rubber monsters and shrieking over-the-top acting is preserved intact
Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (1997)
Jan 30, 2005Teen Power-Suit Superheroes
The second of the film spinoffs from tv's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. More inane silliness played with shrieking OTT excess
Ju-on (2000)
Jun 7, 2023Japanese Ghost Story
The Japanese Ju-on/The Grudge is one of the most popular modern kaidan eiga series, having produced fourteen films to date. This was the very first of the series
Battle Royale II: Requiem (2003)
Aug 20, 2005Deadly Elimination Game
This was the sequel to Battle Royale and ups the scale of the conflict but somewhere loses the gleeful fun of the original and strays off to become a war film
Zebraman (2004)
Sep 3, 2013Japanese Superhero
Head-scratching effort from Japan's Takashi Miike about a schoolteacher who gains superpowers after putting on a costume from his favourite superhero tv series. Miike never seems to be mounting a parody, while the film is too low-budgeted to ever work in terms of kick-ass superheroic action
Appleseed Ex Machina (2007)
Jul 27, 2008Anime/Future Anti-Terrorist Squad
Shinji Aramaki's immediate sequel to his reboot of the Appleseed franchise. This lacks the visually stunning qualities of its predecessor and seems more conceptually muddled but Aramaki eventually gets it together
Exte: Hair Extensions (2007)
May 29, 2015Killer Living Hair Extensions
An earlier effort from Shion Sono that concerns itself with hair extensions that take over and kill their host. More straightforward than many of Sono's other works but the outlandish of the effects make the film
Zebraman 2: Attack on Zebra City (2010)
Jul 15, 2021Japanese Superhero
Takashi Miike makes a sequel to his earlier superhero film filled with his typically eccentric touches
Over Your Dead Body (2014)
Feb 20, 2017Roles From a Play Haunt Their Actors' Lives
The most sustained film Takashi Miike has made in some time. In this case, he adapts Yotsuya Kaidan, the most famous of all Japanese ghost stories, which has been filmed multiple times, but rather than offer a straight telling also adds a layer where the story comes to replay itself among the actors in the play
Kiki’s Delivery Service (2014)
Apr 13, 2017Young Witch's Adventures
NOT the Hayao Miyazaki film but a live-action version based on the same books, made by Takashi Shimizu of the Jun-on/The Grudge films fame. Replicating Miyazaki in live-action is a futile endeavour
Power Rangers (2017)
Jun 24, 2017Teen Power-Suit Superheroes
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers with its ridiculous rubber monsters and dementedly over-the-top acting as one of the key pop culture phenomena of the 1990s. The question is what audience do producers possibly think that there might be for a dark and gritty cinematic reboot?
What to Do With the Dead Kaiju? (2022)
Oct 29, 2023The Aftermath of a Giant Monster Attack
An amusing take on the Japanese Monster Movie that takes place in the aftermath of a monster battle as various government agencies debate what do with the carcass of a giant monster lying in the countryside
Shin Kamen Rider (2023)
Mar 30, 2025Japanese Superhero Reboot
A reboot of the classic Japanese tv series about a superhero who goes into action on a motorcycle using a suit to transform into a grasshopper being