Director: Kinji Fukasaku
Year: 1972
Country: Japan
Alternate Titles: Gendai yakuza: hito-kiri yota
Genre: Action (Gangster/Yakuza)
Plot:
After being released from prison, violent gangster Isamu Okita (Bunta Sugawara) immediately goes about trying to reform his old gang and retaking the community that was lost during his time locked away. Learning that his sphere of influence has diminished, he soon finds his violent nature at odds with Boss Yato (Noboru Andô) who runs the local Yakuza group in the city, and with the local authority waning interest due to his peculiar antics he's able to form his own gang to terrorize the streets. With the success of that group drawing boredom due to their penchant for non-violent ways, he sets about trying to get back to the Yakuza group that initially took over his area, leading to a violent confrontation none of them are prepared to survive from.
This is quite an enjoyable and overall intriguing gangster film. The fact that this one depends solely on the volatile lead Okita, played to perfection by Bunta Sugiwara in a role he can do in his sleep, speaks volumes to this one as it's enjoyment is predicated solely on him snapping at everybody. The fact that everything that happens here is based on that occurring, which thankfully occurs every few minutes here, gives this a strong action-based grounding to throw plenty of brawls, street fights and beatings into the film whenever he feels someone breathes in his direction the wrong way. Sparking fights with anyone and everyone at a moments' notice with no hesitation or warning as he'll just pull up to random people on the street or just cut away to a random brawl occurring in some random location which gives this a pretty wild and frenzied camera-work, getting right up in the action and never really backing away from the viciousness of the strikes.
There are some problems with this one, though. The fact that there's just an endless stream of him barking orders, brawling and recuperating plans with the rest of the gang serves as a loose excuse for a plot here, rending much of what happens as a wholly chaotic series of events just strung together and then hoping the dialog scenes between everything can make up for that lack of cohesion. The film is way too jarring and leaves a quite distinct impression here. Likewise, the film is so clearly smitten with him as the lead that anytime he's not the focus of the scene, going crazy or doing anything the film loses a lot of impact and momentum making for a dull experience. This is especially noteworthy in the middle once the gang is running their business as this endless round of scenes just leaves the whole experience pretty bland and boring save for the nudity.
As well, there's also the overriding issue of contending with Okita as a prominent figure head in the film. For those unfamiliar with the way these gangster films operate and the personas of the people in them, he's a tough pill to get a hold of. A degenerate misogynist who only exists to fight, drink and screw the opposite, his outlandish outbursts and disregard for anybody else around him makes for a truly arrogant lead. Whether he picks fights with people at random or outright denouncing the fact that he can't, treating the woman who literally saved his life with a blood-transfusion during a surgery he required as a prostitute and then laughing in her face when she demands justice and moving on to the next woman to repeat the process is all part of the style here, and that's more on the character than Sugiwara who's perfectly suited for the role and plays him perfectly. Still, getting past his character is a major stumbling block.
Despite a few small issues here and there that come about as a means of merely getting exposed to the genre as a whole, for fans of the style this is an engaging and wholly enjoyable effort. This is definitely recommended viewing for any fan of the style as a whole or those looking to expand from their previous knowledge of the format, while those who aren't aficionados of the format should definitely heed caution here.
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