Tiger Cinema is, in our opinion, one of the best Asian film rentals outlet catering to the US market, with an excellent site and reputation for good customer service. Japanese, Korean, and Chinese take precedence, with some films from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Vietnam as well.
Tiger Cinema was established in 2005 and headquartered in San Jose, California (so you'll get your discs quickest if you're near the West Coast). They offer excellent value to the Asian American community, and have also offered a dedicated video-on-demand (VOD) service called Tiger Stream, which allows members to instantly watch movies and TV series direct to laptop, PC, and TV. The VOD service runs as low as $1.99 per title for TV series episodes
The site is well designed and laid out, divided into two main sections, movies and TV series. Each title lists plenty of detail, including box picture, synopsis, star rating, actors, genre, language, subtitles, region code, as well as member reviews of the film. We especially like their Stars section, where you can look up the films of any of your favorite Asian stars and watch all of their work. We do wish they had a more advanced search engine, currently just a single field, but it does work well.
One major plus is their quick return function, where you click when you have mailed a DVD back to them; rather than wait for it to arrive, they dispatch your next discs immediately.
There are limited reports of their performance across the net and blogosphere, but they are broadly positive--a good change for a niche site.
Note that many Asian DVDs will require a multiregion DVD player to view.
Prices: Tiger Cinema have ceased their unlimited DVD rental packages, and now have capped plans starting at one disc out (maximum of 5 per month) for $8.99 per month, 2 discs out (maximum of 9 per month) for $14.99 per month, and three discs out (12 per month maximum) for $18.99 per month. They also have various TV series' rentals allowing one or more TV series in their entirety to be rented out, though these can vary significantly by the size of the series and number of DVDs.
You can also purchase gift subscriptions for friends and family, ranging for one month to one year at any level.
One of the best Asian DVD rental service in the US in our opinion; slick site with a broad offering and cheap prices at the low disc levels.
DVD Rental Basics