Kinji Fukasaku directs Bunta Sugawara, Satoshi “Tetsu” Sakai, Sonny Chiba, Kin’ya Kitaōji, Meiko Kaji, Akira Kobayashi, Takeshi Katō, Mikio Narita, Kunie Tanaka, Shingo Yamashiro, Nobuo Kaneko and Joe Shishido in the Japanese crime series following the internal gang wars between the various Hiroshima yakuza brotherhoods during their formative decades.

The sequels continue the tabloid cascade of hits, failed hits, in house politicking and grovelling betrayals. Don’t get used to any character as they are unlikely to survive longer than three scene appearances. Oily bosses vamp and whine. Brutally honourable men like Bunta Sugawara’s de facto protagonist pay the price for all the back stabbing.

The whole series needs you to be in the right mood to sync with it. It can easily blur into one big roll call of death. Some Japanese B-Movie superstars stand out. Sonny Chiba, obviously. Akira Kobayashi’s cigarette holder wielding suave wiggler also. Yet even though these should all be the stamp of each other the fourth episode left me cold. The only memorable moment over 100 minutes of it was a shotgun with a sawn-off spike bayonet rifle.

I wonder, if like The Wire, the more you rewatch these the more characters you grow to love and detest and care about?

7 / 6 / 5 / 8

You can follow me on Letterboxd here https://letterboxd.com/ValVerdeNights/