5 film Meiko Kaji mini-retrospective begins this Friday, February 10th

Japan Society NY

presents

New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: The Boss's Head © 1975 Toei Co., Ltd.

New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: The Boss's Head

(Shin Jingi Naki Tatakai Kumicho no Kubi)

Directed by Kinji Fukasaku
With Bunta Sugawara, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Meiko Kaji
Japan, 1975, 94 minutes

Blu-ray, color, in Japanese with English subtitles

When: Friday, February 10th at 7:00 PM

Where: Japan Society NY
3333 East 47th Street, NYC
Map

International Premiere

Japan Society NY's five film Meiko Kaji mini-retrospective begins this Friday evening with Kinji Fukasaku's New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: The Boss's Head.

Never before released outside Japan, Kinji Fukasaku's follow-up trilogy to his successful Battles Without Honor and Humanity series tells three unrelated stories about yakuza intrigue and betrayal, and this middle film co-stars Meiko Kaji as the dutiful wife of a heroin-addicted hitman (Tsutomu Yamazaki) who befriends, then betrays, series star Bunta Sugawara. An essential link within Fukasaku's cinematic world, The Boss’s Head found him expanding his action vocabulary to include car stunts, as well as creating not one, but two meaty female roles (the other played by Yuriko Hishimi). Composer Toshiaki Tsushima contributes another memorable score, and the ensemble casting is among the best of the entire series. A yet-to-be-discovered classic.

18+ This film is unrated, but may only be viewed by persons 18 years of age or older.

Part of Cruel Beauty: A Romantic Weekend with Meiko Kaji

Tickets: $13/$10 seniors & students/$9 Japan Society members

Special Offers:
All Access Pass: (1 ticket for each film in the series, 5 tickets total) Save $3 per ticket. $50/$35 seniors & students/$30 Japan Society members

Double Feature Pass: (2 different films in the same transaction) Save $2 per ticket. $22/$16 seniors & students/$14 Japan Society members

Bunta Sugawara in TORAKKU YARO at Japan Society this Friday

Japan Society NY

presents

 Torakku Yaro / Torakku Yaro: Go-iken Muyo

Directed by Noribumi Suzuki

With Bunta Sugawara, Kinya Aikawa, Junko Natsu,

Yutaka Nakajima, and Masayuki Yuhara

Japan, 1975, 98 minutes

HDCAM, color, in Japanese with live English subtitles

When: Friday, December 4, 2015 at 7:00 pm

Where: Japan Society 333 East 47th Street, NYC

Map

Tickets

Bunta Sugawara (1933-2014) is perhaps best known for his iconic performances as tough-guy yakuza characters for Toei studios, but from 1975-79 he also starred in a series of ten immensely popular Torakku Yaro comedy-action films as a crude yet sincere truck driver named Momojiro “Ichibanboshi” Hoshi who chases after love all over Japan – and gets in fist fights and high-speed truck races along the way. Japan Society will screen the first film in the series on the one-year anniversary of Sugawara’s passing as well as in commemoration of director Noribumi Suzuki and actor Kinya Aikawa, both of whom passed away within the last year.

Part of Monthly Classics
Year-round screenings of beloved classics, hidden gems and recent discoveries of Japanese cinema on the first Friday of every month.

ACF 101: Battles Without Honor

Cover art for Battles Without Honor and Humanity

as Volume 1 of The Yakuza Papers box set

available from Home Vision Entertainment

The Asia Society's film series Gamblers, Gangsters, and Other Anti-Heroes: The Japanese Yakuza Movie concludes with a screening of Battles Without Honor and Humanity on Thursday, April 17th at 7:00 pm. Directed by the late Kinji Fukasaku (Black Rose Mansion, Battle Royale, and many other great films), this seminal 1973 film was the first in a series concerned with the conflicts between and within rival crime families in the Hiroshima area in the years after the end of World War II.

The film starts with an emotionally powerful shot of the Gembaku Domo, the "A-Bomb Dome," Hiroshima's only structural ruin left erect as a reminder of the bomb's devastation. With the city essentially destroyed and the economy in ruins, there were construction contracts to be had and black markets to be run, both prime turf for gang activity.

Bunta Sugawara (above, center) stars as Shozo Hirono, a former soldier who comes to the aid of a Japanese citizen being assaulted by American G.I.s. In prison he is befriended by a member of gang. After their release, Hirono becomes a yakuza himself. He is the central character around whom this film, and the overall series, revolves

The film is of major significance for at least a couple of reasons. Previously films about yakuza were known as ninkyo eiga, or chivalry films. These tended to pivot on the protagonist's conflict between his duties to his crime family and his feelings for an outsider, often a member of another gang with whom he has a special relationship, such as a sworn brother. Here, as the title suggests, there's little chivalry, honor, or humanity. Betrayals run rampant not only between both also within families. Bosses will sell out their underlings and vice versa.

Director Kinji Fukasaku in his younger days

Battles Without Honor and Humanity also constitutes an alternative to the official version of Japanese history. This resulted from Fukasaku being roughly fifteen years old when the war ended. Suddenly, the emperor, who adults had insisted was a god, was declared to be as human as anyone else. This instantaneous change in belief left Fukasaku and others with a great distrust of the official count of things. The movies in the Battles Without ... series tell the story of those who were not talked about or acknowledged to have existed in official chronicles.

Battles Without Honor and Humanity will be shown at Asia Society's New York City Headquarters at 725 Park Avenue (at 70th Street) in Manhattan. Film series curator Ian Buruma and Japanese film scholar Kyoko Hirano will lead a discussion after the screening. For more information or to order tickets, click here or call Asia Society at 212.517.ASIA.

For anyone interested in owning Battles Without Honor and Humanity, as I've indicated just below the top image, this film is available on DVD from Home Vision Entertainment. It can be purchased separately or as Volume 1 of a box set entitled The Yakuza Papers, which also includes the following four films in the series and a valuable bonus disc.

[The above review appeared in somewhat different form in ACF 084 (March, 10, 2008) in conjunction with a screening of Battles ... the following day at Columbia universtiy.]

ACF 084: Battles Without Honor and Humanity - Free Screening

Cover art for Battles Without Honor and Humanity

as Volume 1 of The Yakuza Papers box set

available from Home Vision Entertainment

The film series OUT OF THE ASHES: Early Postwar Japanese Movies continues at Columbia University tomorrow night, Tuesday, March 11, 2008, at 6:00 PM, with a free screening of Battles Without Honor and Humanity. Directed by the late Kinji Fukasaku (Black Rose Mansion, Battle Royale, and many other great films), this 1973 film was the first in a series concerned with the conflicts between and within rival crime families in the Hiroshima area in the years after the end of World War II. Thus it is not an early postwar movie itself, but rather a classic about that period in Japanese history.

The film starts with an emotionally powerful shot of the Gembaku Domo, the "A-Bomb Dome," Hiroshima's only structural ruin left erect as a reminder of the bomb's devastation. With the city essentially destroyed and the economy in ruins, there were construction contracts to be had and black markets to be run, both prime turf for gang activity.

Bunta Sugawara (above, center) stars as Shozo Hirono, a former soldier who comes to the aid of a Japanese citizen being assaulted by American G.I.s. In prison he is befriended by a member of gang. After their release, Hirono becomes a yakuza himself. He is the central character around whom this film, and the overall series, revolves

The film is of major significance for at least a couple of reasons. Previously films about yakuza were known as ninkyo eiga, or chivalry films. These tended to pivot on the protagonist's conflict between his duties to his crime family and his feelings for an outsider, often a member of another gang with whom he has a special relationship, such as a sworn brother. Here, as the title suggests, there's little chivalry, honor, or humanity. Betrayals run rampant not only between both also within families. Bosses will sell out their underlings and vice versa.

Director Kinji Fukasaku in his younger days

Battles Without Honor and Humanity also constitutes an alternative to the official version of Japanese history. This resulted from Fukasaku being roughly fifteen years old when the war ended. Suddenly, the emperor, who adults had insisted was a god, was declared to be as human as anyone else. This instantaneous change in belief left Fukasaku and others with a great distrust of the official count of things. The movies in this series tell the story of those who were not talked about or acknowledged to have existed in official chronicles.

Battles Without Honor and Humanity will be shown at the Davis Auditorium, Columbia University. It's a must see. For more information about this and the other films, as well as a link to a map of the Columbia campus, click here.