Yakuza deka

The Japanese martial artist actor Sonny Chiba became well-known to wide audiences after appearing as the master swordsmith Hattori Hanzo in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003), but at that point he already had a long film career under his belt. His best known earlier films may be the Street Fighter trilogy (all from 1974), but the two Yakuza Deka movies from 1970 are worth a look as well.

Like in the first Deka movie, Chiba plays an undercover cop called Hayata Shiro who is this time allowed to join a yakuza clan called the Seiwa after impressing the clan's big boss and befriending a lower level boss called Ishiguro (Ryohei Uchida). The boss assigns him to wipe out the entire rivaling clan, the Natsui, with whom the Seiwa are competing about the control of the city's marijuana trading business (curiously, no hard drugs are ever mentioned). The Natsui soon realize Hayata is too skilled to be just killed off and hire him to betray the Seiwa instead...

The era when the film was made becomes enjoyably obvious right from the beginning. The clothes and hats, totally groovy music, ridiculously numerous crash zooms and the psychedelic marijuana orgy make it difficult to take the story seriously, but solemnity was clearly never the intention of the filmmakers anyway. The comical sidekicks, exaggerated sound effects, stereotypically loud line deliveries with gruff, angry voices and the sheer over-the-topness of the plot make sure one never gets bored while following the story. Certain scenes, such as the shots of Chiba climbing up building walls, look pretty cool from a simply visual point of view as well.

Besides the funny parts, the action is also very decent. The fights with Natsui's team of ninja assassins (!), the elaborate building intruding sequences and especially the climax (featuring a machine gun, dynamite, a leopard-coloured truck and helicopter rappelling) are highly entertaining pieces of action cinema on their own. On the other hand, the editing is sometimes jumpy and the somewhat serious elements of the story, like Hayata's relationships with Natsui's gun moll Ayako (Kaoru Hama) and a beautiful female teacher or the effect of his betrayal on his friendship with Ishigura, remain very light. Of course, the point was never to make a serious character drama anyway, so it is mostly waste of time to complain about such details. In short, the movie is a must see for Sonny Chiba fans and friends of Eastern action comedies.

Sonny Chiba's long filmography includes popular fighting movies like the Street Fighter series (1974) and Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003), but some lesser known titles like the two Yakuza deka action-comedies from 1970 are entertaining too. I saw the sequel Yakuza deka: Marifana mitsubai soshiki first, but in the end the order doesn't really matter; the two movies are not connected in terms of plot, only subject matter.

Just like the sequel, Yakuza deka recounts an adventure of a tough undercover cop named Hayata Shiro (Chiba) who is assigned to infiltrate and destroy a yakuza clan Yashira. After seemingly resigning from the police force, he is hired by his mobster pal Asai (Ryohei Uchida) and given the job to eliminate a rival yakuza boss Okura (Rin'ichi Yamamoto), but both the Okura and the Yashira clans are playing dirty in the toughening game of bloody rivalries.

The movie is so similar to the sequel I reviewed earlier that I'm going to have to recycle most of what I wrote before: the music and fashion are groovy, the fighting and action entertaining and the comedy amusing enough. The world of psychedelic nightclubs and sex-toy selling transvestites just cannot be not fun, especially when spiced up with frequent gunplay and fistfights featuring loud POW! sound effects every time somebody gets punched (that is, all the time). The tilted camera angles help to make the intruding sequences look very nice and the big finale of Chiba fleeing dynamite-throwing, helicopter-flying baddies through a sand pit is well-made action entertainment, even if not quite as great as the climax of the sequel. The freeze frame-heavy opening credits set the mood for the movie awesomely too.

It is difficult to think of anything significant to criticize about Yakuza deka; everything silly about it just suits the mood seamlessly. Things like an overly straightforward script, abrupt jumping into and out of action scenes or Hayata's slightly simplistic relationship with a drug addict gun moll could come across as poor storytelling in a serious movie, but not here: Yakuza deka is all about fast-paced entertainment not pretending to be anything more. Some hate it, many love it – I count myself in the latter camp.

I met Sonny Chiba and talked about this film, and he didn't know what film I was talking about. This film (barely released in America) is another quick entry on the Chiba action craze that was hot in the 70's. The problem is that the American distributor forgot to dub (in English) 20% of the film ! The film stars the usual stock actors that stars in Chiba films like Yusef Osman, Jiro Chiba, and guest star Giant Baba (famous Japanese wrestler). Lots of good action, excellent soundtrack, and funny gags.

In most of his films, Sonny Chiba's acting skills are usually overshadowed by his fistfights, and "Yakuza Deka" might not be an exception, however it still manages to work as a drama whilst still keeping Chiba's trademark violence. The essential story about an undercover cop isn't exactly anything interesting or original, however Chiba's unshakable screen presence burns through the film and as usual it feels dull when he isn't on screen.

That said, there is a lot of skill behind the camera in Yukio Noda, who keeps everything moving at a cracking pace and handles the action very well, even with the obviously low budget. The film climaxes with a hugely entertaining off road car mêlée, so while not impressing anyone with its story the film certainly excels itself in terms of action. There's plenty of well timed comic relief which gives the film a much lighter atmosphere than other films of the same ilk.

Overall, this may not be for the "serious" Yakuza fan, however it is a very entertaining hour and a half and certainly will not disappoint any Chiba fans, who as usual is the main attraction.

Yakuza Deka 2 : The Assassin is another name for this film and is listed under the Assassin on the IMDb.

Actors killed off from the first movie reappear in the second which shows no link to Yakuza Deka other than the central character being called Hayata.

This feels like it is a remake of the first film with virtually the same plot but with added campy fun. It is better than the original and the climax is as exciting as it is ridiculous. This film starts out over the top and decides to stay there.

As ever in Asian films, the Western characters are despicable and lascivious. Bizarrely, even though he is undercover, Sonny Chiba still has time to attend police briefings so no-one is worried about the Mob having their own sources within the Police.