Yakuza Graveyard

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Movie
German title Yakuza Graveyard
Original title や く ざ の 墓 場 く ち な し の 花
Country of production Japan
original language Japanese
Publishing year 1976
length 92 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Kinji Fukasaku
script Kazuo Kasahara
music Toshiaki Tsushima
camera Toru Nakajima
occupation

Yakuza Graveyard ( Japanese や く ざ の 墓 場 く ち な し の 花 , Yakuza no Hakaba: Kuchinashi no Hana , Eng . "Yakuza Cemetery: Gardenia Blossom ") is a Japanese gangster film by the Tōei from 1976 with Tetsuya Watari in the lead role. Directed by Kinji Fukasaku , who is considered to be the master of yakuza film ( yakuza eiga ), a classic Japanese gangster sub-genre, which he had a major influence on and in the early 1970s with his groundbreaking epic Jingi naki tatakai ( 仁義 な き 戦 い , English Battles Without Honor and Humanity ).

On January 27, 2006, the feature film was included in the video evaluation in its original language with German subtitles.

action

The film is set against the backdrop of a Japanese recession , which organized gangster gangs are also struggling with. This is why the large and powerful Yamashiro Syndicate, a criminal Yakuza network, is pushing into the territory of the much smaller Nishida Syndicate, which focuses exclusively on the operation of lucrative, sometimes illegal, games of chance in Osaka . The resulting disputes threaten to escalate, the corrupt police are in the thick of it and try to avoid negative headlines in public.

The scrapped policeman Kuroiwa has been in a relationship with his bereaved since the death of a criminal, which he was responsible for, without really loving them. One day, the civil servant and thug who likes to drink, known for his unorthodox methods, is transferred to a new district and subordinated to Division 4 of his district manager Akama. His task is initially to observe criminal yakuza, but due to his unauthorized behavior and his rude nature, the investigator, who cares little about correct compliance with the service regulations, gets into trouble with his superiors after a short time. The hypocritical police leadership, which later sided almost entirely with the Yamashiro clan, is concerned about the brutality of the new; Kuroiwa hardly makes contact with his colleagues.

Nevertheless, Kuroiwa's courageous crackdown on organized crime is showing initial results. At the request of his corrupt district manager, the newcomer is taken to a meeting of the Nishida clan, where, in addition to the aging leader Sugi, he also meets the beefy Iwata and the attractive half-Korean Keiko, who manages the organization's finances. Here the policeman is offered bribe money , which, unlike his colleagues, he refuses at the station. The ubiquitous corruption of the police leadership meanwhile leads to a preference for the more powerful Yamashiro syndicate consisting of many ex-police officers. This calls for focused action against the Nishida Syndicate. Meanwhile, Kuroiwa tries not to remain inactive, but investigates on his own and thus falls between the clutches of the warring clans. Little by little he loses all faith in justice. The explosive atmosphere between the Yakuzas finally ends in a bloody gang war. The public takes note of this development without reacting, however.

In this situation, Kuroiwa is visited by the self-confident Keiko, who wants to visit her imprisoned husband, a high-ranking godfather. Between the beauty and the bat, a love develops that ends in sexual passion. Meanwhile, the inferior Yakuza clan, disadvantaged by the police, joins neighboring organizations to form a powerful alliance that is equivalent to the Yamashiro clan. The disaffected Kuroiwa is also invited to the alliance celebrations. A little later, he becomes friends with Iwata, Sugi's representative, and thus gets into a dangerous conflict of interests. This tangled friendly relationship later becomes his undoing when the Yamashiro-loyal police leadership, who acts on behalf of the seedy former police vice-president Teramitsu, dismissed him dishonorably. Disguised by dubious societies, Teramitsu directs the fate of the invasive Yakuza clan.

There is an open rift between Kuroiwa and the police. The fights of the rival gangster formations continue with undiminished severity, the public takes an active part in it. The police are now called upon to act. But even in this situation, the authorities arrested Sugi from the increasingly aggressive Nishida clan. The pressurized head of the criminal organization betrays his representative Iwata to the police despite a certain code, whom he blames for the escalating violence. However, since the authorities are unable to find his whereabouts, they seize the undisciplined Kuroiwa, who, under the influence of injected drugs, is forced to reveal the secret to them. Iwata is then brutally murdered. An invisible break with the Nishidas arises. Feeling guilty, Kuroiwa, who is despised by "his" Yakuzas because he is now considered a traitor, desperately tries to regain Keiko's trust. At the end of the film, having been deprived of his best friend and great love, he decides to punish those responsible for the murder and the increasing violence in Osaka. With stoic calm, he fired at Teramitsu several times in the presence of the entire police headquarters, until he collapsed dead, only to be given the coup de grace by a former companion in front of Keiko's eyes a little later.

Reviews

Blickpunkt: Film wrote that the work was a “dark gangster film” by the director, “in which a policeman between the fronts solves the problems in his own way” .

literature

  • Federico Varese: The secret history of Japanese cinema: The Yakuza movies . In: Global Crime . tape 7 , no. 1 . Taylor & Francis, 2006, pp. 105-124 (English).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Review on amazon.de