Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned)   CLICK HERE to buy from Outlaw: Gangster VIP-6 pack: Gangster VIP, Gangster VIP 2, Heartless, Goro the Assassin, Black Dagger, Kill! Blu-ray & DVD combo Japanese language, English subtitles Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!

Goro (Tetsuya Watari) works as a Yakuza assassin this time around, but when he's about to kill Sawada (Ryoji Hayama) because of a gambling debt and learns the man was cheated and has a sickly wife, Aki, he has a change of heart and tries to help Sawada and Aki escape - but Sawada is killed by one of his henchmen anyhow but doesn't die before begging Goro to take Aki to Nagano to receive treatment. So Goro turns against his boss Mikimoto, steals the money he has cheated Sawada out of, and he and Aki board a train to Nagano, but have to make an emergency stop in Yokohama when Aki has a hert attack and needs urgent treatment. In Yokohama, Goro and his sidekick Kubo (Eiji Go) try to stay out of trouble, but soon find themselves helping a restaurant owner (Kaku Takashina) against the local yakuza led by Koga (Fumio Watanabe), who just happens to be friends with Mikitomo and soon he and his men go after Goro to avenge Mikimoto - and of course get back the money. Also, Sawada's brother Kenji (Koji Wada) thinks that Goro has killed Sawada and wants revenge, a former associate of Goro who has since quit the yakuza and is a successful and totally legit businessman, Sagara, pretty much forces his help on Goro because of an old debt, even despite the fact that his own wife Yuri is Koga's sister ... and to top it all of, Keiko (Chieko Matsubara), daughter of above restaurant owner, has fallen in love with Goro, making everything much more complicated - and even though Goro only wanted to do good, he seems to tear everybody down in a war nobody, least of all himself, wanted ...

Though Heartless is of course an episode of the Outlaw: Gangster VIP series, it's a film that really can stand on its own and it's very commendable for its fatalistic approach that really goes so far that one might call Heartless an anit-gangster movie (if such a genre existed). And beyond that, the whole thing's also greatly structured and features tons of action and tension in all the right places to really make it worth your while!

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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