Bunta Sugawara

When Battles Without Honour and Humanity first hit Japanese screens in January 1973, partially inspired by the success of The Godfather, it blasted out a new Ground Zero for crime cinema not only in Japan, but in the rest of the world, and spawned a legendary series that would lead to additional episodes, spin-offs, and countless imitations. 1947. Ex-soldier Shôzô Hirono (Bunta Sugawara), after proving his ability with a gun, emerges from the teeming black markets of postwar Kure City into the professional world of the yakuza. Shôzô makes his way from prison to boss in the newly-formed Yamamori family via gang feuds, assassinations and the shifting allegiances of his fellow mobsters, despit his own growing disillusionment with the men he is supposed to respect. Based on the true account of a Hiroshima mob boss and supplemented by meticulous research by screenwriter Kazuo Kasahara, this ferocious, violent saga was directed in a dynamic, newsreel-like style by Kinji Fukasaku, and stunned cinemagoers in Japan upon its release. Like a head-spinning mixture of Martin Scorsese and Paul Greengrass, the film’s frenetic cinematography, colourful characters, and iconic score by Toshiaki Tsushima will leave you thrilled and exhausted, as you embark on one of the world’s greatest gangster film series.

The celebrated Battles Without Honour and Humanity series continues with its second episode, Hiroshima Death Match, setting aside part one protagonist Shôzô Hirono (Bunta Sugawara) to follow a side story showcasing genre icons Sonny Chiba (The Street Fighter) and Meiko Kaji (Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion). Hiroshima, 1950. Demobilised kamikaze pilot Shôji Yamanaka (Kinya Kitaôji) is released from prison and finds himself hungry and broke. Following a bust up with a local gang, he earns the psychotic wrath of local underboss Ôtomo (Chiba), but Yamanaka’s suicidal impulses are soon put to good use as a hitman for another gang, befriending series hero Shôzô Hirono in the process. Despite a budding but forbidden romance with the boss’s niece (Kaji), Yamanaka’s instability and recklessness soon begin to make him a dangerous liability. Taking an even more fatalistic turn than the series’ original entry, Hiroshima Death Match tells the story of the ultimate loser, based on a true story uncovered by screenwriter Kazuo Kasahara while interviewing real-life Hiroshima yakuza for part one. A prosperous era may be dawning for the protagonists, but one with new characters and new grudges to draw them more deeply into its world of blood and betrayal.

Yakuza boss Shozo Hirono must choose his alliances carefully as the local gangster family affiliations prove themselves to be wildly unstable, causing gang conflicts to escalate.

Conflicts between Hirono's family and Yamamori's family (and their allies) are made more tense by the ambitious underlings and the police's efforts to impose a crackdown on the gangs.

The Final Episode of the Battles Without Honour and Humanity series brought a new, more contemporary mood to the film and its characters. The yakuza may be starting to resemble a legitimate business, but director Kinji Fukasaku, working with new screenwriter Kôji Takada, never lets the audience forget their violent origins, and their tried-and-true methods of accomplishing their business. 1966. After a police crackdown, the gangs of Hiroshima and Kure have formed a massive, multi-family political and economic alliance called the Tensei Coalition, seeking a way forward into the 1970’s as part of Japan’s economic bubble. Shôzô Hirono (Bunta Sugawara) finds himself increasingly alienated from this semi-legitimate form of corruption, particularly as acting Tensei Coalition chairman Matsumura (Kinya Kitaôji) tries to put the gangs on a new, more business-like path. But old habits die hard, and when rivalries surface once again, they bring with them the promise of more bloodshed. The long-awaited conclusion to the epic series is an elegy for the bad guy, with the harsh realisation that Japan’s economic growth came about only through the sacrifice of the blood of its young men, victims of twenty long years of Battles Without Honour and Humanity.

Bunta Sugawara is Miyoshi, a low-level assassin of the Yamamori gang who is sent to jail after a bungled hit. While in stir, family member Aoki (Lone Wolf and Cub's Tomisaburo Wakayama) attempts to seize power from the boss, and Miyoshi finds himself stuck between the two factions with no honourable way out

In the second entry, The Boss's Head, Sugawara is Kuroda, an itinerant gambler who steps in when a hit by drug-addicted assassin Kusunoki (Tampopo's Tsutomu Yamazaki) goes wrong, and takes the fall on behalf of the Owada family, but when the gang fails to make good on financial promises to him, Kuroda targets the family bosses with a ruthless vengeance

Nozaki, a labourer who swears allegiance to a sympathetic crime boss, only to find himself elected his successor after the boss is murdered. Restrained by a gang alliance that forbids retributions against high-level members, Nozaki forms a plot to exact revenge on his rivals, but a suspicious relationship with his own sister taints his relationship with his fellow gang members

Through a simple act of revenge, Tokyos deadliest assassin sets off the biggest gang war in crime history. There is nowhere to hide when the most vicious criminal imaginable try to hunt him down, determined to annihilate this definitive master of death. Starring Bunta Sugawara ("Spirited Away," "The Man Who Stole the Sun") and Tsunehiko Watese ("Antarctica," "Amagi goe"). Japanese Language Film with English Subtitles.

After losing his family to violent criminals, a man begins to pick apart the crooked politicians and street thugs who are responsible.

A story of yakuza lynching during the Edo, Taisho, and Showa periods.

Hoping for a peaceful life after his release from jail, a yakuza member instead finds himself leading a territorial battle for control of Yokohama.

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A retired yakuza underboss is pulled back into the life he left behind when he's caught in the middle of a bloody war between two rival clans.