This article is part of a directory: Game Rant's Ultimate Sci-Fi Guide
Table of contents

Every culture has a certain subset of its population that will devote their time to imagining the distant future or the depths of space. That imagination, however, will always be influenced by the outlook on the world that they're used to. With that in mind, many countries have unique takes on the medium that are hard to recapture elsewhere.

In the United States, Japanese cinema is far too often boiled down to cinematic anime and their live-action adaptations and cultural oddities like kaiju films. Though most of the highest-grossing Japanese films come from the world of anime, they have a lot of other interesting film traditions to offer.

RELATED: 5 Underappreciated Japanese Horror Movies

Burst City

burst-city-movie Cropped

Though the cyberpunk movement officially started in American literature, best seen in the work of authors like Phillip K. Dick and Bruce Bethke, Japanese cyberpunk has been integral to the subgenre. Burst City was director Sogo Ishii's third feature, and it stands today as a progenitor of the Japanese cyberpunk movement. As a film, it's a chaotic mess with a limited plot. It's an experiential encapsulation of the era's punk subculture. Ishii pushes the camera to its limits, eagerly throwing aside narrative focus in exchange for a pulse-pounding tone. It also serves as a showcase for the era's music, as three actual Japanese punk bands make up the lively soundtrack. Sci-fi fans looking for a thoughtful exploration of mankind's relationship with technology should look elsewhere. Those who felt that Mad Max: Fury Road was a little too restrained are in good hands with Burst City.

Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes

beyond-the-infinite Cropped

First-time director Junta Yamaguchi helms this oddball sci-fi comedy. The film was shot in a week for almost no money, literally filmed on Yamaguchi's iPhone. In a rare case, the ongoing pandemic actually benefited this film, by thinning out larger projects so that it could get a shot at a theatrical run. Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes tells the tale of a café owner who discovers that his computer depicts the world two minutes into the future. He then discovers that his TV depicts two minutes into the past. By holding one up to the other, he and his coworkers can see a slightly longer glimpse of what's to come. It's a bizarre comedy with a near-omnipresent sense of tension. Playing with time takes on an absurdist element, granting otherwise banal conversation an air of dreamlike detachment. At 71 minutes, it's barely feature length. It actually feels like a great comedy sketch. With no cash and barely any work Yamaguchi crafted something truly special.

Returner

returner-movie Cropped

When the Wachowskis put out The Matrix, the film was hailed as a groundbreaking new experience. While much of it was new, a lot of what the film did right involved bringing ideas from Asian cinema across the sea to American audiences. With that in mind, it's nice to see a Japanese film use a similar model. Returner is not an original film in many ways, but it can't accurately be called a ripoff either. Concepts from Terminator 2 and ET are borrowed with reckless abandon, but every piece is in service of the noble art of looking cool. The film follows an assassin decked out in a leather coat and sunglasses who must help a young soldier from the future stop an alien invasion. It's bombastic, chaotic, violent, bold, and unrestrained. Its aesthetic dates it horribly, anyone could tell it came out in the early-2000s from a glance. Despite all that, it's a ton of fun for fans of the edgy assassin aesthetic.

Before We Vanish

before-we-vanish Cropped

The alien invasion is one of the most classic sci-fi stories. This take adds an interesting pod-people element that turns it into something much more interesting. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, one of the most prominent visionaries in Japanese horror, crafted this unique exploration of the human experience through an alien lens. The film follows three alien scouts who take over the body of seemingly random people in order to study humanity before they launch a full-scale invasion. The clever twist is that the aliens can't just experience human life by infiltration, they have to steal the understanding of metaphysical concepts like freedom and love to get them. Watching these bizarre beings slowly learning the innate qualities of life on Earth is a haunting journey. Kurosawa has had an incredible career, but this 2017 effort is an underrated gem.

Battle Royale II: Requiem

battle-royale-ii Cropped

The first Battle Royale film is a cult classic that inspired much of the young adult dystopia genre and the video game genre of the same name. The sequel has a much lower cultural profile, but it deserves more. It's not a retread of the first film, it's a continuation that goes in some legitimately wild directions. The centerpiece is Shuya Nanahara, the meek protagonist of the first film. The transformation that actor Tatsuya Fujiwara goes through is inspiring. This is a must-see for fans of the first film and an act of bold cinematic vision that demands a closer look.

MORE: Could The Ghost Of Tsushima Movie Be Saved By A Japanese Cast?