Yakuza Graveyard

In this unconventional Yakuza film Fukasaku works for a second time with the actor Watari Tetsuya. The relationship between a police inspector and a Yakuza again sketch a picture of how violence dominates life on the underside of society. The plot is close to Cops Vs. Thugs, also written by Kasahara Kazuo. An inspector has just started in his new job at a police station in Osaka. He makes friends with the boss of a Yakuza gang and falls in love with the man’s younger sister. He helps the Yakuza boss in a war with a rival gang and keeps informed about secret links between a former police chief, now bank director, and the highest bosses in the local police. When his friend is killed by a Yakuza from the other gang, the inspector himself becomes embroiled in the violent gang war. The inspector in Yakuza Graveyard was born in Manchuria during Japanese occupation, his Yakuza friend is Korean and his younger sister is a Japanese-Korean half-blood girl. This background gives the film an extra dimension and situates the drama of social violence, emerging from the clandestine relationships between organised crime and the police, even closer to the reality of the lower echelons of Japanese society. But the film is more than a simple indictment of the lack of social justice. The power of Fukasaku as director and Kasahara as scriptwriter is in the fact that their biting criticism is in the form of an action film for the entertainment market. The popular title song of the film was sung by protagonist Watari Tetsuya, who was a talented singer at the time. The melody of the song helps contribute to the dramatic effect.