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Isamu (Bantu Sugawara), a young punk and leader of a street gang, is
released from prison and returns to his gang - to learn it has thrown in
with Takigawa's (Keijiro Morokado) yakuza organisation, and in prison,
Isamu has learned to distrust and hate the yakuza. However, Isamu accepts
ex-yakuza Kizaki (Asao Koike) into his gang, to advice him on how to break
up with Takigawa and remain independent (and alive). This all leads to a
small gang war between Isamu's gang and Takigawa's organisation, until
Isamu is injured and almost killed. Enter yakuza boss Yato (Noboru Ando),
Takigawa's rival and sworn enemy, who sees to it that Isamu's life is
saved and he comes back to strength - but in return, he swallows up Isamu
and gang into his organisation. The deal seems to be beneficial even for
Isamu, who gets his own territory, earns some nice money, and controls
quite a few clubs in the area. But things are too peaceful for him, and
since there is no more action on the streets, he just sleeps around - much
to the dismay of his girlfriend Kinuyo (Migumi Nagisa), a girl he has once
sold into prostitution but who against all odds has fallen in love with
him and donated her blood when he was on the verge of dying. Now Kinuyo
threatens to kill herself should he not change and remain faithful to her
- and thus, Isamu creates an incident between his gang and the Takigawa
gang that does also include superboss Owada (Asao Uchida), who wants to
take over all the local gangs, and in the aftermath of this event, Isamu
even breaks up with Yato, who has long come to an agreement with Owada and
with Takigawa, and now demands that Isamu cuts off a finger to make amends
to Owada, just like he himself has done, actually. Yato only refrains from
erradicating Isamu's gang because the young hothead reminds him of himself
years ago ... Kizaki has been a loyal second-in-command to Isamu for the
longest time, but after breaking up with Yato, which he considered a
mistake, he sees no more way to properly serve him and wants out. Isamu
lets Kizaki go without hesitation and without punishing him in the least -
but Kizaki doesn't get far and is gunned down by Takigawa's men ... Isamu
and the few men still loyal to him hide out in an abandoned warehouse,
when Yato, Takigawa and Owada arrive. Isamu wants to fight his way out,
just like he always did, but when his men falter, he decides to give
himself up for their sake, and doesn't even mind that the yakuza beat him
to a pulp. Enter girlfriend Kinuyo, who only wanted to bring Isamu some
food, but witnessing the situation at hand, she now attacks his assailants
- and is brutally slaughtered before his very eyes. This pushes Isamu over
the edge, and he picks up a knife and kills everybody within arm's reach,
including Yato, actually, the only one of the yakuza who ever stuck out
his neck for him. Eventually though, Isamu is brutally gunned down without
having changed a thing, as Takigawa will just take over Yato's territory
in cold blood ... Being the sixth and final film in any series
(in this case the Modern Yakuza-series) doesn't sound
promising by definition, yet this is a seminal film in both the career of
director Kinji Fukasaku and yakuza-cinema as such, as it moves the genre
away from the gangster with a code of honour of previous decades
that pretty much made the genre so far to the (in lack of a better word)
street punk variety of films that would eventually become the new
direction the yakuza film went into, with Fukasaku being responsible for
quite a few genre masterpieces over the next few years. In terms of
directorial effort, Fukasaku takes his style that combined
documentary-like sequences, dynamic camerawork (including many a handheld
sequence), unusual cameraangles and sudden change of pace (without harming
the film's overall pacing) to new extremes, also something he would refine
even more in later films, and the film was also the star-making movie for
Bunta Sugawara, who gives an intense yet weirdly likeable portrait of his
violent and essentially evil character with a predilection for rape, a
likeability he builds on the character's sincerity as opposed to the
yakuza's penchant for treachery and double-crossing. In short, even if
you're only remotely interested in yakuza films or gangster cinema in
general, this one's a must-see.
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