box set – Windows on Worlds

General run down of Arrow’s Battles Without Honour and Humanity box set first published by UK Anime Network.

When you’re thinking about the modern gangster action movie, you’d be hard pressed to come up with a more influential name than Kinji Fukasaku. Though perhaps best remembered for his extremely controversial adaptation of Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale, he first began to make a name for himself with a series of revolutionary yakuza movies released over a short period of time in the mid ‘70s. Up until this time there had been a popular strand of “ninkyo eiga” gangster pictures which took their queue from the now less well regarded samurai movies applying the classic chivalry tropes to the criminal underworld. However, the ninkyo eiga was also becoming stale and it was time for something new. Perhaps the world was ready a depiction of the yakuza life which was a little more honest.

Teaming up with screenwriter Kazuo Kasuhara, Fukasaku’s aim was to tell the story of post-war Japan from the viewpoint of youth. Based on the real life memoirs of a famous yakuza, Battles Without Honour and Humanity is a prime example of the “jitsuroku” approach and didn’t make any attempt to hide the ugly side of the underworld.

The first film in the series introduces us to Shozo Hirono just back from the war (in fact still in his army uniform) when he witnesses a group of American soldiers attempting to rape a woman in a crowded market area. Hirono comes to the woman’s rescue only to be pulled back by the police who tell him not to mess with the GIs. Later, one of his friends is assaulted by a yakuza and teaming up with a rival gang Hirono gets his revenge but also ends up being sent to prison for twelve years. Inside, he meets another mobster who tells him you can get out on bail for a price because the prisons are so over crowded. If he helps in his escape attempt, he’ll get his yakuza buddies to bail Hirono out. Hirono quickly finds himself embroiled in the yakuza underworld.

Though nominally the protagonist of the entire series, Hirono is pushed to the sidelines for the second installment, Hiroshima Death Match. This time the protagonist, Yamanaka, is a little younger – too young to have actually fought in the war he nevertheless had kamikaze dreams that the war’s end denied him fulfilling. It’s now 1950, and young guys like Yamanaka have come of age in the difficult post-war world. With no opportunities and a fuelled by a young man’s fury it’s no mystery that he ends up in a gang. Things would probably have been OK for him but he made the mistake of falling in love with the boss’ niece with tragic consequences.

Moving back into the centre again for part three, Proxy War, Hirono has formed his own gang in the nearby town of Kure. It’s 1960 and the cold war is mounting the world over. The yakuza it seems are not immune to the internecine power struggles themselves and embark on a series of complicated alliances, double crossings and betrayals. The action may have calmed down a little here but the intricate plot elements make it one of the most impressive entries in the series.

By the time we reach Police Tactics, times have moved on. With prosperity on the up and the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games on the horizon the public have grown tired of yakuza antics and fearing for their international reputation, it’s finally decided that the police should go hard on organised crime. With the “cold war” environment of the last film still in the background, it’s a tough time to be a yakuza.

The Final Episode is something of a bonus epilogue, written by a different screenwriter (Koji Takeda who’d previously worked on ninkyo eiga) the film picks up with the yakuza as a political corporation, morphing into violent corporate entities rather than petty thugs. The original crew are the old guys now and some of them don’t want to change. The young guy, Matsumura, seems to have his head screwed on when it comes to initiating the new brand of gangster but he still has to contend with all the complicated infighting from each of the other instalments. Hirono is in prison for much of the film writing his memoirs and seems set to retire on release. However, it’s not long before he’s dragged back into the world of yakuza crime.

Fukasaku makes his yakuza look cool, yes, but he never ignores the destructive nature of their existence. Having returned from the war defeated, these men were angry, traumatised and left with few options. They turned to crime and to violence because that was all that was left to them. Many of the films end with funerals and countless young men are cut down in their prime but in the end it all counts for nothing. Nothing gets created out of this mess except widows and orphans. The constant shots of the ruined dome (now the Hiroshima Peace Memorial) constantly remind us that this is just one example of young lives sacrificed for old men’s vanity. If “jingi”, the concept of honour and humanity often referred to in yakuza movies, ever existed at all then it’s another casualty of war because there’s nothing of that moral universe left remaining in this cruel and empty world.

All of the films follow a documentary style approach with a voice over explaining the context and frequent on screen captions giving the characters’ names and affiliations (and at the appropriate moments their time of death). The action is fast, furious and messy with lurid paint-like red blood decorating the screen. Largely captured with handheld camera and unusually dynamic movement, the series’ key signature is realism.

This new box set from Arrow presents each of the films in a top notch HD transfer which is a vast improvement on the previously available versions. Notably, the set also includes the rarer “complete saga” edit of the film which presents the first four movies cut together with a short intermission in the middle. This is as well done as could be yet suffers a little because of the floating nature of Hirono’s involvement – i.e, the second film where he’s barely present feels a little out of place in the midst of the other three where he’s more of an active player. The plots are undoubtedly complicated but the set does also include a hardback book filled with illuminative essays and also a series of “family tree” style diagrams outlining the various gangs and their makeups.

A seminal entry in the world of Japanese gangster pics, the Battles Without Honour and Humanity (also known as the Yakuza Papers) series is an essential watch for any yakuza movie enthusiast. Without Fukasaku’s input there’d be no Takashi Miike, or Kitano gangster movies – simply put he changed the course of Japanese action films. Finally available in HD with English subtitles, this comprehensive set from Arrow is the perfect way to revisit each of these hugely influential movies.

The Kinji Fukasaku’s Battles Without Honour and Humanity: The Complete Collection blu-ray & DVD box set is out now from Arrow Video in the UK and USA. The set also comes with an impressive array of bonus features including an exclusive hardback book filled with essays by some of the top scholars of today! Full list of contents from Arrow’s Store

This obviously a very compressed run down so here are some links to more in depth reviews of each of the films:

and the trailer for the first film

General review of Arrow’s Kiju Yoshida: Love + Anarchism box set up at UK Anime Network.

Kiju (also known as Yoshishige) Yoshida is one of the primary names in Japan’s 1960s art movie boom though he’s comparatively unknown and, in fact, little seen outside of Japan. Though some of this is down to Yoshida’s fierce self ownership of his own back catalogue, this new HD blu-ray box set from Arrow Films is the first time any of his films will be readily available with English subtitles. Titled Love + Anarchy, the box set includes both the original director’s cut of Yoshida’s magnum opus Eros + Massacre as well as the shortened theatrical cut of the film, his examination of ’60s radical leftist politics in Heroic Purgatory and his look at a failed ‘30s rightist insurrection in Coup d’Etat.

Eros + Massacre is the film Yoshida has become best known for and the one with which he is most closely associated. The film tells two parallel stories beginning with the 1960s students Eiko and Wada who are running an extra curricular research project into the lives of a group of Taisho era anarchists including feminist Ito Noe and poet Osugi Sakae who was an early exponent of free love which is something that particularly interests Eiko. The Taisho era scenes are less a historical examination than they are the results of the research project conducted by Eiko and Wada and so are a sum of their refracted perceptions. The film is full of surrealistic touches like the Taisho characters suddenly turning up in modern day Tokyo or unexpected scenes of expressionism breaking in without warning. A fantastic example of ‘60s avant-garde cinema, Eros + Massacre is a film which should have been more widely seen and now hopefully will be.

The first question – why two versions? The answer is not the one you’re thinking of. Though the film is undoubtedly long at over 3.5hrs, Yoshida largely financed the film himself and intended to release it in his original version. However, though Ito and Osugi were assassinated along side Osugi’s six year old nephew in the chaos following the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, another of Osugi’s mistresses, Kamichika Ichiko, was still very much alive (though obviously an old woman) and a serving politician. She got wind of the film and after seeing it threatened to sue over her portrayal. Yoshida voluntarily recut the film to minimise her scenes, renamed her character and exhibited the shortened version to great acclaim. Though the director’s cut is truest to Yoshida’s vision, even in the shortened version his artistry shines through.

The second film in Yoshida’s “political trilogy” is the even more avant-garde Heroic Purgatory. Far less accessible than the other two films in the set, Heroic Purgatory spans three distinct time periods from the recent past to the present and the near future and focuses on the current Japanese leftist movement with particular reference to its opposition towards the renewals of the Japanese and American mutual defence treaty. However, what all of this really amounts to is paean to love and marriage. Full of strange and beautiful photography Heroic Purgatory is the iconic avant-garde film. Which is to say it’s undoubtedly difficult, inscrutable and perhaps more experienced than understood.

By contrast Coup d’Etat is the most straightforward of the films presented. Marking the only time in his career where Yoshida was not involved in the screenplay, the film moves across the political divide and examines the final days of right wing intellectual Ikki Kita. Ironically enough, the thrust of the film concerns an attempted political coup by a group of young army officers who disapproved of the government’s treatment of its people and particularly of its failure to properly provide for the poor. Their revolution was in the name of the emperor, they merely wanted to eject the sitting government. Despite his repeated protestations and lack of direct involvement in the planning of the coup, Kita still paid the price as his stature and the influence of his writings were simply too strong making him a dangerous individual and a pretty fitting scapegoat. The last film Yoshida would make with ATG (and in fact the only one which was entirely produced with them), Coup d’Etat retains his characteristically complex imagery even if it ejects his surreal storytelling style. It also loses his wife, Mariko Okada, but gains the towering presence of star character actor Rentaro Mikuni.

Available for the first time with English subtitles and in HD this new box set from Arrow Films is a long overdue opportunity to finally witness the challenging yet hugely important work of this hitherto neglected filmmaker. Yoshida’s work is not easy to digest (it will also help to have a little knowledge of 20th century Japanese history or to make careful use of the excellent essays included with the box set) but is always beautiful. The unseen genius of the ‘60s avant-garde art scene, Yoshida is an uncompromising figure which may be why it’s taken so long for work to reach us, but now that it has, it’s an opportunity that should not be ignored.

Links to individual reviews of each of the films: