The King of Minami: Special Ver. 50

The quintessential V-Cinema series reaches its 50th instalment, 12 years after the first film was launched onto video store shelves. Takeuchi Riki returns as moneylender Manda Ginjiro, still butting heads with the yakuza while protecting local business owners.

Ginjiro finds that it has become impossible to collect debts when even his regular clients have been conned out of their savings. He discovers that Sugiura gang underboss Domoto (Ryu Daisuke, co-star of Kurosawa Akira’s Kagemusha and Ran) is behind these schemes. Domoto wants to take over the gang and tries to ruin Yukino, the real boss’s widow and the gang’s acting head, by sabotaging a resort hotel project with the help of a thug named Kawatani. Ginjiro, who has lent money for the project, is furious when he learns about Domoto’s schemes and goes into action.

At the turn of the millennium, Japan’s recession showed no signs of stopping, making Ginjiro’s role as champion of the little guy struggling against economic odds every bit as relevant as when the King of Minami series began in 1992. By now, the yakuza have plummeted to becoming illegal traders in human organs, harvested from people unable to repay their financial debts to the gang.

– Tom Mes