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| Images courtesy of 88 Films |
Briefly in Martin Scorsese’s 1990 mobster epic Goodfellas
there’s a montage with voiceover narration from Lorraine Bracco regarding her
interactions with mob wives otherwise known as women married to mobsters. While the plight of the mob wife has been dealt
with in film before and invariably will be again, the female experience of
being wedded to crime has rarely been as uncompromisingly brutal and cutthroat
as it is depicted here in Hideo Gosha’s 1986 ensemble Japanese drama Yakuza
Wives.
The director behind such jidaigekis as Sword of the Beast
and Goyokin, Gosha thrived through the 1960s and 1970s as a purveyor
of the yakuza film and the period drama.
However in the 1980s he shifted creatively, focusing on the plights of
prostitutes or women trapped in debasing sexual situations and started
receiving critical backlash despite box office successes and Yakuza Wives was
no exception. Presented on Blu-Ray disc
for the first time via 88 Films in a numbered limited edition, Yakuza Wives offers
a different angle on the yakuza subgenre that zeroes in on how women get dragged
into a world of crime often against their will.
Tamaki (Shima Iwashita) is a stern matriarch who takes sharp
command of the Domoto clan while her husband waits out his jailtime sentence
and her younger sister Makoto (Rino Katase) is engaged to be married. However, the situation is complicated by the
arrival of Kiyoshi (Masanori Sera) from rival Horyu Group who proceeds to rape
Makoto before forcing her into an unwanted yakuza marriage. After Makoto begins to fall for her attacker,
word trickles back to elder sister Tamaki which nearly triggers a war between
the rival factions. When she intervenes
and forbids Kiyoshi from seeing her, that itself engenders a fierce conflict
between Makoto and Tamaki with both sides experiencing the difficulties of
yakuza loyalties and codes of honor while still being a woman with agency and
acceptance of the deal of being married to crime.
An uncompromisingly brutal yet sensitively feminist look at
the ordeals and struggles of women entwined with yakuza men who could die at
any minute should an assassin pop out kill them, Yakuza Wives is a
sobering, somber and matter of fact drama.
Based on accounts from real yakuza wives shaped into a story by Soko Ieda
and adapted for the screen by Koji Takada, it's an ensemble piece that
basically boils down to three principal characters with the sisters and the yakuza
and points to how warfare between factions can arise and erupt.
With arresting 1.85:1 widescreen cinematography by Rashomon
cameraman Fujio Morita which captures the glamour and high lifestyle lived
by the yakuza interspersed with angry bloodshed and a moody, jazzy saxophone
heavy score by Yojimbo composer Masaru Sato, the atmosphere of Yakuza
Wives looks at once inviting and threatening with a sad underpinning. It goes without saying Shima Iwashita from
such Japanese genre classics as Harakiri and Double Suicide is a
powerhouse of maternal acting, feminine yet unwavering to lascivious men she
encounters and the film is under her command.
Rino Katase of Tokyo Bordello goes the whole distance with
respect to sex and nudity onscreen alongside her costar Masanori Sera as the
outwardly cool but internally terrified Kiyoshi. There’s also, for those who are really
looking, a small supporting role from eventual Takashi Miike regular Riki
Takeuchi.
As with their release for Jakoman & Tetsu, 88
Films have fashioned Hideo Gosha’s Yakuza Wives in a lovely Blu-ray
edition with a golden OBI spine, reversible sleeve artwork and plentiful extras
such as an essay booklet and video introduction by Mark Schilling. For those keen on the meaning of tattoos and
the three dragons donned by Kiyoshi, there’s an interview with tattooist Seiji
Mouri. Yes this absolutely does
represent what critics were complaining about regarding the shift in tone and
focus on the endurances of female protagonists during his 1980s tenure but at
the same time Yakuza Wives never becomes exploitative or titillating,
instead pointing a spotlight on the hardships of being married to crime like it
or not.
At one point mid-film following a bloody shootout, one of
the wives kicks and screams about how she hates the yakuza code and
system. Despite the deserved woes being
aired, these Yakuza Wives don’t get off so easily with Tamaki around who
keeps stern order over her faction like a wolf clan. For all of the horrors endured by these
women, the most threatening one of all may well just be one of their own.
--Andrew Kotwicki
