Movies like Red Peonies on the Skin (1957)
The best movies like Red Peonies on the Skin (1957) are Kamui (2009), Zatoichi: Darkness Is His Ally (1989) and Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple (1955). If Red Peonies on the Skin hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedSeven Samurai (1954)8.5/10 from 4,461 votes
- NewestKnuckle Girl (2023)Released 2023
- In JapaneseKamui (2009)Also in Japanese
Kamui (2009)
A rebellious ninja in 17th century Japan takes refuge with a fisherman and his family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisZatoichi: Darkness Is His Ally (1989)
Older, wiser but still a wandering loner, the blind, peace-loving masseur Ichi seeks a peaceful life in a rural village. When he's caught in the middle of a power struggle between two rival Yakuza clans, his reputation as a deadly defender of the innocent is put to the ultimate test in a series of sword-slashing showdowns.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSamurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple (1955)
After years on the road establishing his reputation as Japan's greatest fencer, Takezo returns to Kyoto. Otsu waits for him, yet he has come not for her but to challenge the leader of the region's finest school of fencing. To prove his valor and skill, he walks deliberately into ambushes set up by the school's followers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSamurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1954)
Struggling to elevate himself from his low caste in 17th century Japan, Miyamoto trains to become a mighty samurai warrior.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisZatoichi (2003)
Blind traveler Zatoichi is a master swordsman and a masseur with a fondness for gambling on dice games. When he arrives in a village torn apart by warring gangs, he sets out to protect the townspeople.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSamurai Rebellion (1967)
The mother of a feudal lord's only heir is kidnapped by the lord. Her husband and his samurai father must decide whether to accept the unjust decision, or risk death to rescue her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisKnuckle Girl (2023)
Following the story of Ran, who confronts a mysterious organization by participating in a no-rules deathmatch after discovering her missing younger sister Yuzuki is involved in a crime. With danger at every corner, Ran must trade in her boxing gloves for brass knuckles. Will she save her sister?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBattles Without Honor and Humanity: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima (1973)
Repeatedly beat to a pulp by gamblers, cops, and gangsters, lone wolf Shoji Yamanaka finally finds a home as a Muraoka family hitman and falls in love with boss Muraoka's niece. Meanwhile, the ambitions of mad dog Katsutoshi Otomo draws our series' hero, Shozo Hirono, and the other yakuza into a new round of bloodshed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTaboo (1999)
Set during Japan's Shogun era, this film looks at life in a samurai compound where young warriors are trained in swordfighting. A number of interpersonal conflicts are brewing in the training room, all centering on a handsome young samurai named Sozaburo Kano. The school's stern master can choose to intervene, or to let Kano decide his own path.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (1952)
A fugitive lord and his six retainers disguise themselves as monks to bluff their way through a hostile checkpoint.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRainy Dog (1997)
A Japanese assassin stranded in Taiwan must take work from a local crime boss to make ends meet when suddenly a woman from his past delivers a son to him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHarmonium (2016)
Toshio hires Yasaka to work in his workshop. But then this old acquaintance, who has just been released from prison, begins to meddle in Toshio's family life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisZatoichi Meets Yojimbo (1970)
Zatoichi treks to a village that has always been a favorite spot of his, only to discover that it’s become a living hell, plagued by feuding father and son yakuza as well as the younger crime boss’s bodyguard, scruffy, smart-mouthed, cash-hungry Yojimbo of legend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFemale Yakuza Tale (1973)
Ocho is accidentally captured by a drug trafficking cartel who use Chinese women to smuggle drugs into Japan by hiding it in their vaginas. She is tortured, and manages to escape, fighting both the male yakuzas and a gang of female thieves.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Tale of Zatoichi (1962)
The adventures of a blind, gambling masseur and master swordsman. Zatoichi targets a yakuza-controlled village, because war with a neighbouring town's smaller gang is brewing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNew Tale of Zatoichi (1963)
Wishing to find peace, Zatoichi travels to his old village but only finds trouble when he ends up in a love triangle and finds old scores have followed him home.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMy Dinner with Hervé (2018)
An unlikely friendship evolves over one wild night in LA between a struggling journalist and actor Hervé Villechaize, the world's most famous gun-toting dwarf, resulting in life-changing consequences for both.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGoyokin (1969)
A guilt-haunted samurai warrior attempts to stop a massacre taking place.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Tale of Zatoichi Continues (1962)
Returning to the village where a year before he had killed Hirate, a much-admired opponent, Zatoichi encounters another swordsman and former rival in love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisChûshingura (1962)
After their lord is tricked into committing ritual suicide, forty-seven samurai warriors await the chance to avenge their master and reclaim their honor.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBring Me the Head of Shichiemon! (1993)
During the Sengoku period, an army relentlessly lays siege to a castle, but they will need the head of the opposing lord to declare victory.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
新選組!! 土方歳三 最期の一日 (2006)
Follows the final days of the shogunate and Shinsengumi's Vice-Comander Hijikata Toshizo along with his fellow anti-imperialist group.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Ask This of Rikyu (2013)
Sen no Rikyu (Ebizo Ichikawa) is the son of a fish shop owner. Sen no Rikyu then studies tea and eventually becomes one of the primary influences upon the Japanese tea ceremony. With his elegant esthetics, Sen no Rikyu is favored by the most powerful man in Japan Toyotomi Hideyoshi (Nao Omori) and becomes one of his closest advisors. Due to conflicts, Toyotomi Hideyoshi then orders Sen no Rikyu to commit seppuku (suicide). Director Mitsutoshi Tanaka's adaptation of Kenichi Yamamoto's award-winning novel of the same name received the Best Artistic Contribution Award at the 37th Montréal World Film Festival, the Best Director Award at the 2014 Osaka Cinema Festival, the 30th Fumiko Yamaji Cultural Award and the 37th Japan Academy Film Prize in nine categories, including Best Art Direction, Excellent Film and Excellent Actor.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Seven Samurai (1954)
A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisDevoted Servant Naosuke (1939)
Naosuke, a servant of Okajima Yasoemon, devoted himself to his master. One day, his master Okajima Yasoemon, lost his face in front of people. It was a revenge by Oono, a karo (minister) who lost his chance to earn money by selling a fake antique to the lord. Okajima told the lord it was fake. Okajima endured Oono's humiliation. But, his servant Naosuke, could not. But what could he do? Oono is superior of his master. Naosuke would not hesitate to lay down his life for his master. But killing Oono would ruin his master. He wanted to clear his master's disgrace. What to do?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Korosuna (2022)
Kotani Zenzaemon, a ronin who has a side job making brushes in a tenement house in the back alley, is watching Omine, who lives with him, from Kichizo, a resident of the same tenement house and a boatman. is asked to Kichizo and Mine have eloped and got married, but she feels empty in her boring daily life, and she wants to take a break by crossing the bridge over the river. On the other hand, Kichizo forbids him from crossing the bridge, fearing that his whereabouts will be known to others. Zenzaemon superimposes the appearance of these two people on the appearance of his former self and his wife, whom he killed himself.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Stray Nightingale (2017)
Japan, 1785. Jūzaburō, a famous thief who refuses to kill innocent people, is betrayed, ambushed, and left for dead.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Kagemusha (1980)
A feudal epic presenting the tale of a petty thief who is recruited to impersonate Shingen, an aging warlord, in order to avoid attacks by competing clans. The impostor becomes comfortable living his life among nobility, but his responsibilities to his station grow more demanding the longer he occupies it.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBanzuiin Chōbei (1940)
A jidaigeki film on Banzuiin Chōbei produced in 1940 and directed by Yasuki Chiba.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Retired Samurai (1987)
Japan's greatest jidaigeki star, Mifune Toshiro is Shogun's Advisor Okubo Hikozaemon who must be coaxed out of retirement to save Shogun Iemitsu from danger. The elderly Hikozaemon has been belittled of late and has seemingly lost the will to live, much less the desire to assert himself and make Iemitsu listen to reason. The plot thickens when a lovely young woman enters the picture. Can she change Hikozaemon's mind, and thus alter the path of Japanese history? No longer a young man, can Hikozaemon gain the shogun's ear, and succeed in warning him of the evil plot to overthrow him?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like Red Peonies on the Skin and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Red Peonies on the Skin?
The closest matches to Red Peonies on the Skin are Kamui (2009), Zatoichi: Darkness Is His Ally (1989) and Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple (1955). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Red Peonies on the Skin?
Start with Kamui (2009), the closest match to Red Peonies on the Skin.
What is the highest-rated movie like Red Peonies on the Skin?
Seven Samurai (1954), rated 8.5/10 by 4,461 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Red Peonies on the Skin?
Knuckle Girl (2023) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Japanese movies like Red Peonies on the Skin?
Yes: Kamui (2009), Zatoichi: Darkness Is His Ally (1989) and Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple (1955).
How are movies similar to Red Peonies on the Skin chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Red Peonies on the Skin, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.