Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Final Episode

The gang wars in Hiroshima have gone on for years. In this instalment a new order is attempted: the gangs will unite under a federation and the fighting will end. Nobody believes it. The old bosses will not give up their chairs, the young want to rise, and every agreement turns into another purge. Shozo Hirono is tired now. Kinji Fukasaku directs. Bunta Sugawara plays Hirono. It is the last of the five film Jingi Naki Tatakai series. The series tells the history of the yakuza in postwar Japan and its source is real: the confessions of an imprisoned yakuza member, published in a newspaper. The idea of the series is that there is no such thing as honour. Where classical yakuza films rest on loyalty, this one refuses it entirely; everyone betrays and nobody wins. Fukasaku's manner is distinct: handheld camera, sudden zooms, freeze frames and the name of the dead written on screen. The method influenced crime cinema widely afterwards. The last film has the most exhausted tone of the series; the action thins and the narrative shows an era ending. It was made at Toei and the series was shot within two years. Who it is for: viewers who like Japanese crime cinema and Fukasaku. Who it is not for: there are far too many characters, it is close to impossible to follow without the series, and the violence is heavy.