| Battles Without Honor and Humanity | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Kinji Fukasaku |
| Written by | Kazuo Kasahara Kōichi Iiboshi (story) |
| Starring | Bunta Sugawara Hiroki Matsukata Tatsuo Umemiya Tsunehiko Watase Nobuo Kaneko |
| Music by | Toshiaki Tsushima |
| Cinematography | Sadaji Yoshida |
| Distributed by | Toei |
| Release date(s) | January 13, 1973 |
| Running time | 99 minutes |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
Battles Without Honor and Humanity (仁義なき戦い Jingi naki tatakai) is a 1973 yakuza film by director Kinji Fukasaku. It is adapted from a series of newspaper articles, by journalist Kōichi Iiboshi,[1] that were rewrites of a manuscript originally written by real-life Yakuza, Kōzō Minō, while he was in prison. It is the first film in a five-part series also known as The Yakuza Papers. Due to the series' enormous commercial and critical popularity it was followed by another three-part series, New Battles Without Honor and Humanity, and concluded with a final installment, Aftermath of Battles Without Honor and Humanity. It is often called the "Japanese Godfather."[2]
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The violent, documentary-like film chronicles the underworld tribulations of Shozo Hirono (Bunta Sugawara), a young ex-soldier and street thug in post-War Hiroshima. Starting in the open-air black markets of bombed-out Hiroshima in 1945, the film spans a period of more than ten years. The plot consists of a changing of the guard of new families and organizations with the same feuds and people, punctuated by the gritty violence. It gave way to four sequels, which form a sprawling yakuza epic. The overall tone of the series is bleak, violent and chaotic, expressing the futility of the struggles between yakuza families.
The title refers to the post-war yakuza's lack of jingi, a Japanese term loosely translated as "honor and humanity". Previous yakuza movies had, for the most part, been tales of chivalry set in pre-war Japan. It is also a parody of an ancient Chinese fable about a foolish king who respected honor and humanity too much in a war and consequently lost his kingdom. A commercial and critical success, Battles Without Honor and Humanity portrayed a darker and more cynical world, and set the stage for much subsequent Japanese cinema.
In the western market it is known under the titles:
The first 5 films in the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series were released as The Yakuza Papers by Home Vision Entertainment in a 6-disc DVD box set in 2004. The bonus DVD contains interviews with director William Friedkin, discussing the influence of the films in America; subtitle translator Linda Hoaglund, discussing her work on the films; David Kaplan, Kenta Fukasaku, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, a Toei producer and a biographer among others.[3]
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