Movies like New Shadow Warriors (2003)
The best movies like New Shadow Warriors (2003) are Revenge of the Ninja (1983), Kamui (2009) and Zatoichi (2003). If New Shadow Warriors hooked you with its action and war, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedRurouni Kenshin: The Final (2021)7.7/10 from 571 votes
- NewestRurouni Kenshin: The Final (2021)Released 2021
- In JapaneseKamui (2009)Also in Japanese
Revenge of the Ninja (1983)
A peaceful ex-ninja's life shatters when his son's kidnapping forces him back into violence amid an American-Japanese criminal drug war.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKamui (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 & action
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 & action
Worth the HypeMovies 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 action & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRurouni Kenshin: The Final (2021)
In 1879, Kenshin and his allies face their strongest enemy yet: his former brother-in-law Enishi Yukishiro and his minions, who've vowed their revenge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGoemon (2009)
Follow the infamous ninja bandit named Ishikawa Goemon in an epic story. One night while looting treasure from Nanban, Goemon finds a mysterious box hidden inside a secret grave. A forgotten relic from the past containing untold powers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 action & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRurouni Kenshin Part I: Origins (2012)
In 1868, after the Bakumatsu war ends, the ex-assassin Kenshin Himura traverses Japan with an inverted sword, to defend the needy without killing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & war
Worth the HypeMovies 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 action & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 & action
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNinja (2009)
A westerner named Casey, studying Ninjutsu in Japan, is asked by the Sensei to return to New York to protect the legendary Yoroi Bitsu, an armored chest that contains the weapons of the last Koga Ninja.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades (1972)
Ogami Itto volunteers to be tortured by Yakuza in order to save a prostitute and is hired by their leader to kill an evil chamberlain.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & action
Worth the HypeMovies like thisZatoichi on the Road (1963)
Zatoichi is sworn to protect the life of a young girl and without any real allies finds himself in the middle of a bloody turf war.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Challenge (1982)
Rick, a down-and-out American boxer, is hired to transport a sword to Japan, unaware that the whole thing is a set up in a bitter blood-feud between two brothers, one who follows the traditional path of the samurai and the other a businessman. At the behest of the businessman, Rick undertakes samurai training from the other brother, but joins his cause. He also becomes romantically involved with the samurai's daughter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisLone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance (1972)
Official Shogunate executioner Ogami Itto has been framed for disloyalty to the Shogunate by the Yagyu clan, against whom he now is waging a one-man war, along with his infant son, Daigoro.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & action
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBerserk: The Golden Age Arc III - The Advent (2013)
One year has passed since Guts left the Band of the Hawk and Griffith was imprisoned by the Kingdom of Midland for treason. In the dead of night, at a camping site where they hide, the Band of the Hawk is attacked by Bakiraka assassins led by Silat. When all seems lost, Guts returns from his journey. "You destroyed everything." Crying that Griffith is nothing without Guts, Casca and Guts are joined together body and soul. Griffith is imprisoned in the oldest building in Wyndham Catle, the Tower of Rebirth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 action & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this47 Ronin (2013)
Kai—an outcast—joins Oishi, the leader of 47 outcast samurai. Together they seek vengeance upon the treacherous overlord who killed their master and banished their kind. To restore honour to their homeland, the warriors embark upon a quest that challenges them with a series of trials that would destroy ordinary warriors.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx (1972)
Ogami Itto battles a group of female ninja in the employ of the Yagyu clan and must eliminate a traitor who plans to sell his clan's secrets to the Shogunate.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisZatoichi Challenged (1967)
Ichi is staying at an inn when a woman dies. Her dying wish is that Ichi take her son to his father, an artist living in a nearby town. After arriving in the town, Ichi finds out that the father has been forced by a local boss to create illegal pornography to pay off his gambling debts. Ichi makes it his mission to save the man and reunite the family, even though it brings him into conflict with a samurai he sort of befriended on his way to the town.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this300 (2007)
A story very loosely based the 480 B.C. Battle of Thermopylae, where the King of Sparta led his army against the advancing Persians.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCurse of the Golden Flower (2006)
During China's Tang dynasty the emperor has taken the princess of a neighboring province as his wife. She has borne him two sons and raised his eldest. Now his control over his dominion is complete, including the royal family itself.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAlexander (2004)
Alexander, the King of Macedonia, leads his legions against the giant Persian Empire. After defeating the Persians, he leads his army across the then known world, venturing farther than any westerner had ever gone, all the way to India.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Patriot (2000)
After proving himself on the field of battle in the French and Indian War, Benjamin Martin wants nothing more to do with such things, preferring the simple life of a farmer. But when his son Gabriel enlists in the army to defend their new nation, America, against the British, Benjamin reluctantly returns to his old life to protect his son.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both war & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Fatal Encounter (2014)
Late 18th-century Joseon dynasty. The King is beleaguered and surrounded by traitors of the ruling elite. They plan to assassinate and replace him with a puppet. But the King has some aces up his sleeve that may help him defeat them all.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGame of Death (1978)
A martial arts movie star must fake his death to find the people who are trying to kill him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Near the end of the Korean War, a platoon of U.S. soldiers is captured by communists and brainwashed. Following the war, the platoon is returned home, and Sergeant Raymond Shaw is lauded as a hero by the rest of his platoon. However, the platoon commander, Captain Bennett Marco, finds himself plagued by strange nightmares and soon races to uncover a terrible plot.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe China Syndrome (1979)
While doing a series of reports on alternative energy sources, opportunistic reporter Kimberly Wells witnesses an accident at a nuclear power plant. Wells is determined to publicize the incident, but soon finds herself entangled in a sinister conspiracy to keep the full impact of the incident a secret.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAll the President's Men (1976)
During the 1972 elections, two reporters' investigation sheds light on the controversial Watergate scandal that compels President Nixon to resign from his post.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991)
The Turtles and the Shredder battle once again, this time for the last cannister of the ooze that created the Turtles, which Shredder wants to create an army of new mutants. Meanwhile Splinter is coming... to a decision.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like New Shadow Warriors?
The closest matches to New Shadow Warriors are Revenge of the Ninja (1983), Kamui (2009) and Zatoichi (2003). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after New Shadow Warriors?
Start with Revenge of the Ninja (1983), the closest match to New Shadow Warriors.
What is the highest-rated movie like New Shadow Warriors?
Rurouni Kenshin: The Final (2021), rated 7.7/10 by 571 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like New Shadow Warriors?
Rurouni Kenshin: The Final (2021) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Japanese movies like New Shadow Warriors?
Yes: Kamui (2009), Zatoichi (2003) and Zatoichi: Darkness Is His Ally (1989).
How are movies similar to New Shadow Warriors chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside New Shadow Warriors, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.