 |
| Images courtesy of Radiance Films |
Boutique labels such as Arrow Video and now Radiance Films have
taken great pains to bring the work of Japanese master filmmaker Kinji Fukusaku
to domestic viewers. Though audiences
were familiar with his work in the Hollywood war film Tora! Tora! Tora!,
the multiple Japanese Academy Film Prize winner’s films never really became
known in the US until recently. Working
at a breakneck pace still outrunning the likes of Takashi Miike and still the
grandmaster of the gritty near-handheld yakuza film, sometimes directing as
many as three to four films within a year, the director slowed down briefly in
1969 just before the Tora! Tora! Tora! job came about. Among those is today’s Radiance Films pick
for their World Blu-ray Premiere moniker with Fukusaku’s startlingly classy and
nuanced yakuza drama Japan Organized Crime Boss digitally restored in 4K
and plentiful extras including an archival interview with the master himself.
Yokohama gang leader Tetsuo Tsukamoto (Koji Tsuruta) is only
a few steps out of prison following an eight-year sentence when he finds
himself whisked forcefully back into the life amid turf war between two major
yakuza factions from Tokyo and Osaka waged by the nefarious Boss Danno. Hastily tasked with picking up where the slain
boss of the Hamanaka left off, Tsukamoto finds himself trying to keep the peace
and avoid any conflict with encroaching forces including rival gangs. This goes as far as taking punches and knife
slashings to the face from the heroin-addicted Miyahara (a splendid Tomisaburo
Wakayama) and not lifting a finger to fight back, taking all of it in stride in
order to maintain a stable truce. Soon
however, like Scorsese’s Mean Streets after it, the film becomes a study
of a bad man trying to do good in ways that speak to his code but are dangerous
to everyone else.
An early progenitor into what would or wouldn’t become
Fukusaku’s trademark brand of yakuza fare featuring elegant cinematography and
visual compositions by Hanjiro Nakazawa and an arresting if not understated
score by Masanobu Higure, Japan Organized Crime Boss is considered to be
among the first modern-day set yakuza action infused dramas. With all of the inescapable ugliness of the
world of the yakuza on full display while hinting at some measure of redemption
with a criminal trying to prevent more unjust criminality, the film all but
rests on the shoulders of Koji Tsuruta as the unlikely hero of the piece. Taking on a bit of a Gregory Peck quality as
the newly appointed boss trying to calm down a firestorm, Tsuruta humanizes and
makes an otherwise instinctual killer relatable. A strong counterpoint and opposite extreme is
Tomisaburo Wakayama’s boorish intoxicated madman who seems to have met his
match in Tsukamoto. Also worth keeping eyes
open for in supporting turns are Noboru Ando and Bunta Sugawara.
Released theatrically in 1969, the film is considered to be
the first in a series of what became known as Japan’s Violent Gangs films. Also called Japan’s Violent Gangs – Boss in
some territories, it helped usher in a whole new slew of crime films in the
country, functioning as docudrama while still doling out Fukusaku’s trademark
style of Dutch angled handheld camerawork, fast frenetic violence and above all
no compromise. Featuring some still
gruesome and startlingly realistic squib effects work involving violent bloody
shootouts between rival gangs, arresting performances and some of Fukusaku’s
most graceful compositions yet, Japan Organized Crime Boss is another
surefire home run for Radiance Films who continue to impress with their slate
of previously unavailable modern classics waiting to be rediscovered by genre
fans.
--Andrew Kotwicki
