Another Battle

As a child, Sakamoto Junji saw a group of dangerous-looking men hanging around in front of the cinema and he was very impressed. It turned out to be the billboard for the film Battles Without Honour and Humanity, which was an enormous hit in 1972 in Japan (and was screened last year in Rotterdam in the Fukasaku Kinji retrospective). Since then, several sequals have been made to this ultimate Yakuza story. Now it is Sakamoto’s turn himself. He consciously chose not to portray the gangsters as honest and tough heroes. The gangsters in his film are cowardly, dumb and unreliable, which is probably closer to reality than previous film versions.Two friends of Japanese-Korean descent, Chanryon and Kadoya, grew up in Osaka in the 1970s. The city was torn apart by a Yakuza war. The boys also became involved when Chanryon’s parents were humiliated by Yakuza. The boys took their revenge and Chanryon killed a Yakuza. Thirty years later, the friends meet again. Chanryon has become a successful businessman. Kadoya is at the head of a group of Yakuza and works for the powerful Sahashi family. When the head of the family dies, a struggle for power breaks out.Sakamoto ignored the old gangster style and found a contemporary and credible form in which he mainly focuses on the friendship between the excellent protagonists. See also: Kao/Face.