Battles without Honour and Humanity

Although based on a true story, this film owes a lot to The Godfather, which was released a couple of years before. However, there are quite a few differences. For a start, there are many more main characters. At least twenty. And they are introduced at such a rate as to make it impossible to follow the lot. No less than ten characters are introduced (each with a name and description subtitle) in the first two minutes. The key word for this film is - chaotic. The opening scene is of Japan just after the end of WWII. The camera uses the now-familiar form of WobblyScope, tumbling all over the place as it chases the young thugs who chase misbehaving GIs and then run away. The progression is highly episodic from there. Although Shozo is the lead character and narrator, much screen time is spent on at least a dozen others. Really, if you are non-Japanese, like me, you'd need a map of all the characters and their changing relationships to have any hope of following the story. However, this is not a big problem because, mainly, it is one of the aspects which the filmmaker is trying to convey. That the people who were drawn into these gangs often had nothing much else to do, and were not particularly men of honour. The Japanese title refers to the total breakdown of the old code, where honour was everything. The only character who acts with anything like honour here is Shozo, who looks continuously stunned as powerplays and double-deals swirl around him. This film is a terrific antidote to the "honourable gangster" films. Well-worth watching. Also, it produced at least 4 sequels, all starring Bunta.

Oh, yeah, this is one brilliant, edgy, dark piece of film-making! It moves at the speed of light starting with the American Occupation of the devastated city of Hiroshima after WWII up to the early 1970's.

It has great actors playing complex characters, and cinematography and editing way ahead of its time.

Turn off your phone and don't look away for even a second, or you'll miss something critical. There are many characters and lots of information to absorb.

I've read that the script was based on the life of a real Yakuza, but whether it's fact or fiction, it's a hell of a ride.

And though it's a serious film, sometimes it's also hilarious-- intentionally so.

Warning--not for the squeamish. Unlike the Tarentino films this has been compared to, the violence here is NOT cartoonish or funny. It's brutal, bloody, and serious. (as it should be, in my opinion)

Every movie buff knows that Kinji Fukasaku was the most know yakuza film director, with Junya Sato; both gave us dozens of films of this kind. And there were plenty of other film makers too. This very film opens the way of a cycle of five or six movies, starting in 1945, after WW2 and Hirosima tragedy. It shows pretty well how gangs of Yakuzas rose from poverty, hopelessness, despair to survive. Watch it as a document, a social crime film, pulled by great directing and acting; for instance an amazing Bunta Sugawara, a long time yakuza film actor.

Based on a true story Battles Without Honor is a kick ass trip through the rise of the yakuza in post war Japan. Beginning in 1945 and traveling through the next 12 or so years this is the tale of a group of friends who come together in order to survive the cruelties of post-war, and post-bomb Japan and then spend the next decade killing each other as they change sides in a perpetual gang war.

This film has just about everything. Moments of violence, hysterical comedy (The finger), drama, and there is even hints of romance as a moll tries to hide her beau. Its brutal and nasty and probably very close to reality.

Some reviews paint this as having come in the wake of the Godfather, but while that may have gotten the movie made, the tone is different. There is no honor, there is no loyalty, there is only violence, violence and more violence, usually ex-friend on ex-friend. Despite there being "gangs" its really everyman for himself. American and European films of the same period often painted things as much less cut throat and that there really was familial loyalty, that idea is somewhat alien here as people switched sides if it kept them alive.

This is a near perfect film in many ways. It picks you up from the opening minutes and carries you along to the end. Its wonderfully of a time and place and extremely well acted all around.

There are only two problems which are minor. First, I think the film requires a bit more familiarity with what was going on in Japan post war. While I have had some knowledge of that, I was a tad lost at the start since I wasn't instantly aware of what I was seeing. The second minor flaw is that its jump through time story telling can be a bit disorienting. Its not that the plot threads are lost, its just that it takes a minute to know who the older people are.

Over all a great film.

8 out of 10, although it probably should be 9 out of 10, since I'm just in a down mood.

After just finishing the entire series (5 films in all) I must say that this series is DEFINITELY worth a watch, especially for fans of dramas centered around crime families with a healthy dose of violence to help spice things up.

It follows mainly Shozo Hirono, and his journey from an ambitious and stoic slum-dweller in the bombed out crater of the Hiroshima bomb site. As him and his war buddies climb the ranks of the Yakuza, greed, honor and betrayal force the families into various conflicts in a never ending cycle of power struggles.

Stylistically this film, and all the others, are excellent, with a consistent jazzy theme accentuating the more important points and giving each entry a familiar feel to the last one, yet not one which ends up feeling boring or overused. The camera work is fantastic and the scene composition is where I am most reminded of the Italian-American titan of cinema that this review invokes. Many of the scenes are around crowded tables at family meetings or in shadowy bars with table lamps and cigarette smoke twirling in the air.

All in all I love this series and if you have a chance, absolutely watch all five. If anything give this first entry a chance and you will not be disappointed.