Battles Without Honor and Humanity A.K.A. The Yakuza Papers (pt. 3): Proxy War

1973, 91 min., 35 mm, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. Directed by Kinji Fukasaku. With Bunta Sugawara, Akira Kobayashi, Tsunehiko Watase, Shingo Yamashiro, Reiko Ike, Nobuo Kaneko, Hiroki Matsukata, Tetsuro Tamba.

The centerpiece of the five-film postwar yakuza arch-epic/classic is almost impossibly alert to the constant transactions of power within the unrepentantly violent world of Hiroshima gangsters. Inspired by real-life events, these Battles breathlessly accumulates unabashed close-ups of bloodletting and wounded bodies flying left and right, front and back. The film has the most treacherous plot of the lot–plotting, counter-plottings, alliances and betrayals will leave viewers dizzy and with only one certainty, that of violence; by fair means or foul, mostly foul, we are led into battle and bloody murders, with jitsuroku ("docudrama"-style) star Bunta Sugawara at the center of it. This is your chance to witness Japanese gangster violence in all its seedy, futile but spectacular glory.

Part of the Globus Film Series:
Hardest Men in Town: Yakuza Chronicles of Sin, Sex & Violence

TICKETS
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