Battles Without Honor and Humanity

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Battles Without Honor and Humanity
Directed by Kinji Fukasaku
Written by Kazuo Kasahara
Koichi Iiboshi (story)
Starring Bunta Sugawara
Hiroki Matsukata
Tatsuo Umemiya
Tsunehiko Watase
Nobuo Kaneko
Music by Toshiaki Tsushima
Cinematography Sadaji Yoshida
Distributed by Toei
Release date(s) January 13, 1973
Running time 99 minutes
Country Japan
Language Japanese
Followed by Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Hiroshima Deathmatch
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile
For the instrumental piece by Tomoyasu Hotei featured in the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill, see Battle Without Honor or Humanity.

Battles Without Honor and Humanity (仁義なき戦い Jingi naki tatakai?) is a 1973 yakuza film by Japanese director Kinji Fukasaku and adapted from a series of newspaper articles by Koichi Iiboshi, a journalist and former yakuza.[1] It is the first film in a five-part series also known as The Yakuza Papers. Due to the series' enormous commercial and critical popularity it was followed by another three-part series, New Battles Without Honor and Humanity, and concluded with a final installment, Aftermath of Battles Without Honor and Humanity. It is often called the "Japanese Godfather."[citation needed]

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

The violent, documentary-style film chronicles the underworld tribulations of Shozo Hirono (Bunta Sugawara), a young ex-soldier and street thug in post-War Hiroshima. Starting in the open-air black markets of bombed-out Hiroshima in 1945, the film spans a period of more than ten years. The plot consists of a changing of the guard of new families and organizations with the same feuds and people, punctuated by the gritty violence. It gave way to four sequels, which form a sprawling yakuza epic. The overall tone of the series is bleak, violent and chaotic, expressing the futility of the struggles between yakuza families.


[edit] Etymology

The title refers to the post-war yakuza's lack of jingi, a Japanese term loosely translated as "honor and humanity". Previous yakuza movies had, for the most part, been tales of chivalry set in pre-war Japan. A commercial and critical success, Battles Without Honor and Humanity portrayed a darker and more cynical world, and set the stage for much subsequent Japanese cinema.

In the western market it is known under the titles:

  • Battles Without Honour and Humanity (Canada)
  • Tarnished Code of Yakuza (Australia)
  • The Yakuza Papers
  • War Without a Code

[edit] Sequels

[edit] Home video

The first 5 films in the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series were released as The Yakuza Papers by Home Vision Entertainment in a 6-disc DVD box set in 2004. The set also contains interviews with director William Friedkin, discussing the influence of the films in America; subtitle translator Linda Hoaglund, discussing her work on the films; and others.[2]

[edit] References

  1. ^ D., Chris (2005). Outlaw Masters of Japancese Film. I.B. Tauris, pp. 9-10. ISBN 1-84511-086-2. 
  2. ^ Erickson, Glenn (November 2004). The Yakuza Papers: Battles Without Honor And Humanity: The Complete Box Set. DVD Talk. Retrieved on 2007-09-02.

[edit] External links

The title Jingi naki tatakai (Battles Without Honor and Humanity) is shown over a backdrop of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
The title Jingi naki tatakai (Battles Without Honor and Humanity) is shown over a backdrop of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
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