9 Movies To Watch If You Love Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth embraces the cinematic features of the medium while telling a story in a way only a video game could. The often comedic and touching side stories disarm you and make the serious, tragic story beats all the more impactful. If you are looking for movies similar to the 2023 game, look no further than the list below.

Every Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth Actor Who's Voiced Another Yakuza Character Before

They sounded a little familiar, didn't they?

Some of them are movies based around the Yakuza criminal organizations, while others are more thematically linked, dealing with questions of redemption or having a deep sense of justice. Not all of them come from Japan, but we made sure to include several that do.

There is also a film adaptation of the first Like a Dragon game (then called Yakuza in the West). It is not included on this list.

9 Sonatine

Gangsters On Vacation

• Director: Takeshi Kitano
• Release Year: 1993
• Country: Japan

Sonatine mostly takes place in Okinawa, Japan, whose seaside vistas are reminiscent of some of the less crowded parts of Hawaii. A large majority of the movie sees the main character, a Yakuza enforcer, and his crew playing games on the beach.

Of course, these characters are less redeemable than the characters in Infinite Wealth. There's a great defining moment in the movie where a woman says to the main character, "But you shoot with ease," and his response is simply, "Because I scare with ease".

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8 Brawl In Cell Block 99

A Post-Modern Grindhouse Prison Exploitation Film

• Director: S. Craig Zahler
• Release Year: 2017
• Country: USA

Vince Vaughn plays Bradley Thomas, a drug dealer who ends up betraying two of his coworkers when a deal goes bad and the cops show up. As revenge, his bosses force him to assassinate a target in a maximum security prison or else they will kill his unborn child.

Bradley does all he can to turn the tables on them using his brute strength and wit. The movie lacks the wholesome moments found in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth but is similar in that it deals with a protagonist fighting to make things right when every system is against him, whether that be criminals or the law.

7 Pale Flower

A Man Comes Out Of Prison To A Different World

• Director: Masahiro Shinoda
• Release Year: 1964
• Country: Japan

This movie follows a Yakuza recently released from prison to a drastically different world. He meets a woman and falls in love, but the woman might be more interested in the opportunities for adrenaline when dealing with the criminal underworld.

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A lot of the main characters in Like a Dragon are at the end of their rope and just about to cross a point of no return but often can pull themselves away from the path of self-destruction. Pale Flower offers a glimpse at a character who voluntarily looks for the thrill, rather than those who are forced into it by circumstance.

6 The Night Comes For Us

Protecting An Innocent Girl At All Costs

• Director: Timo Tjahjanto
• Release Year: 2018
• Country: Indonesia

After a gangster partakes in the massacre of a village, he feels sorry for the one survivor, a small girl, and decides to do all he can to protect her. What follows is a gauntlet of some of the most brutal, intense, and complex fight scenes put to film. The sheer creativity in the choreography alone is enough to warrant watching this film.

Relating to Like a Dragon on a basic level, it's as if the cartoonish takedowns in the game were realistic. What do you think would happen if Kiryu stomped on somebody's head? Looking at the narrative, the idea of a gangster protecting a small child against all odds is a story pretty close to the series.

5 Brutal Tales Of Chivalry

A Movie About Honor And Integrity Among The Yakuza

• Director: Kiyoshi Saeki
• Release Year: 1964
• Country: Japan

Brutal Tales of Chivalry deals with the post-war chaos of Japan and one Yakuza boss who tries to keep the black market trade of weapons to a minimum. However, that's almost impossible when another family starts indulging in the practice.

The idea of upholding honor and keeping a code of ethics in such a cruel world feels like it is ripped right out of the Like a Dragon series. It's what Ichiban is constantly striving to do. Though he is out of the criminal underworld, something always seems to drag him back in.

4 Rhino

An Unflinching Look At The Ukrainian Criminal Underworld In The 1990s

• Director: Oleg Sentsov
• Release Year: 2021
• Country: Ukraine

Like a Dragon deals with finding redemption when the whole world doesn't want you to have it. Rhino, on the other hand, asks what redemption means once you have crossed a point of no return. Can one be redeemed when their actions have destroyed so many lives and harmed the ones they loved?

Don't expect humor from this film, since it is relentlessly oppressive and violent. Rhino's lead shares one facet with multiple protagonists from Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, though; they were all pushed into the criminal underworld by circumstances beyond their control.

Rhino's director, Oleg Sentsov, made the film immediately after serving five years in a Russian prison following the 2014 invasion of Crimea. It was a 20-year sentence but he was released in 2019 in a prisoner exchange. Following the start of the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he joined the Ukrainian army.

3 Outrage

An Entertaining, Violent Yakuza Movie

• Director: Takeshi Kitano
• Release Year: 2010
• Country: Japan

Takeshi Kitano's Outrage is more sensational than his other Yakuza films. It feels more like it was put on screen to be as entertaining as possible to a mass audience, and it works.

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It follows escalating tensions between several gangs that lead to a gang war and numerous acts of creative violence that will make anyone wince. It doesn't feel as much of a character study as Kitano movies like Sonatine or Fireworks (Hana-Bi), but its runtime shoots by as every actor delivers an electric performance.

2 Carlito's Way

Al Pacino Doing What Al Pacino Does Best

• Director: Brian De Palma
• Release Year: 1993
• Country: USA

Al Pacino is no stranger to films about the criminal underworld, but Carlito's Way hits differently. The titular character just got out of prison and genuinely wants to go straight. However, in a classic turn of events escaping the criminal life is not as easy as just walking away.

Still, Carlito has all the plans set into motion to leave New York behind and retire with his girlfriend. The cast is rounded out by Luis Guzman, John Leguizamo, and Sean Penn.

1 Boiling Point

Even Innocent People Reach A Point Where They'll Burst

• Director: Takeshi Kitano
• Release Year: 1990
• Country: Japan

Unlike the other Takeshi Kitano movies on this list, Boiling Point follows two characters who are not involved in the criminal life. They are two amateur baseball players whose coach is threatened by a local gang. The characters are often just on the edge of enacting a plan but can never go through with it.

However, as the name implies, there is a point at which they might just do something rash to take revenge. Kitano doesn't play the main character but has a supporting role as a completely unhinged criminal whose actions affect the two leads.

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