Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima

The second film in the series. This time the centre is not Hirono but a young man named Shoji Yamanaka, who comes out of prison, attaches himself to the Muraoka family in Hiroshima, and falls in love with the boss's mistress. At the same time an uncontrollable figure called Otomo arrives and wrecks the balance between two families. Kinji Fukasaku directs. Kinya Kitaoji plays Yamanaka and Sonny Chiba plays Otomo. Bunta Sugawara returns as Hirono from a smaller position. The production speed is itself a fact worth knowing: the first film came out in January 1973, this one in April. Toei ran the series at close to factory tempo and finished five films inside eighteen months. Fukasaku's method is fully set here: shoulder mounted camera, permanent shake, a frame frozen mid brawl with the dead man's name and dates typed onto the screen. It reads like a newspaper file, because the source is one: the series draws on the prison memoirs of a real yakuza. It is usually named the most tragic entry. Unlike the others, Yamanaka's story does not run on ascent. It runs on a single misplaced loyalty. Who it is for: viewers interested in yakuza cinema and in the dark economy of postwar Japan. Who it is not for: come to it without the first film and the crowd of names will lose you. It assumes you were there.