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

New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: The Boss's Head
Japanese release poster
Directed by Kinji Fukasaku
Produced by Goro Kusakabe
Keiichi Hashimoto
Kyo Namura
Written by Susumu Saji
Yozo Tanaka
Koji Takada
Starring Bunta Sugawara
Meiko Kaji
Tsutomu Yamazaki
Narrated by Satoshi "Tetsu" Sakai
Music by Toshiaki Tsushima
Cinematography Tōru Nakajima
Edited by Kozo Horiike
Distributed by Toei
Release date
  • November 1, 1975 (1975-11-01)
Running time
 94 minutes
Country Japan
Language Japanese

New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: The Boss's Head (Japanese: 新仁義なき戦い 組長の首, Hepburn: Shin Jingi Naki Tatakai: Kumicho no Kubi) is a 1975 Japanese yakuza film directed by Kinji Fukasaku. The film details the inner-conflicts between members of the Owada family on the Kyushu side of the Kanmon Straits. It is the unrelated sequel to New Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1974) and was followed by the third and final unrelated film in the series, New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Last Days of the Boss (1976).

Plot

In Kitakyushu in June 1968, the vagabond Shuji Kuroda has promised to take the fall for the murder of Iwao Masaki, head of the rival Kyoei Group, that is being planned by Tetsuya Kusunoki. Kusunoki nearly misses the scheduled time of the hit because of a sudden urge to go shoot heroin and during the hit itself his gun fails to fire any bullets, forcing Kuroda to wrestle Masaki's gun from him and kill him with his own weapon. Kuroda serves seven years in prison for the crime. In prison he fights off a group of inmates attempting to rape fellow inmate Katsuo Shimura and befriends him. Having been released earlier, Shimura greets Kuroda upon his release together with another young man, Akira Kobayashi, both of whom promise their loyalty to Shuji Kuroda. He returns to Kyushu and finds Kusunoki in a deep state of heroin addiction and abandoned by the Owada family. Together they go to the Owada family's headquarters to request Kuroda's reward for serving the prison sentence but Tokuji Owada, boss of the family, refuses and only pays 100,000 yen instead of the agreed five million yen.

Kusunoki takes Kuroda to the boss's mistress Shinako's house, crashes his car into it, and makes her dig a grave while they demand the 5 million from Owada. The next day one of Owada's men, Aihara, meets with Kuroda but cannot pay the full five million and instead offers 500,000-600,000 yen's worth of heroin, which he must sell on Akamatsu's territory to earn any money at all. During the attempt to sell the heroin he recognizes Akamatsu's woman Aya as the same woman meeting with Aihara in a hotel earlier. Akamatsu's men steal the heroin and Akira Kobayashi murders Akamatsu but dies at the scene, leading the police to seize the heroin found at the scene and leaving Kuroda with nothing. A large group of Akamatsu's men soon arrive in the city looking for vengeance but Aihara promises to settle the matter.

Aihara later meets with Kuroda in the presence of the boss and gives him the full five million, explaining that he had plotted for Kuroda to kill Akamatsu for his desire to go independent after becoming successful under Owada. Kuroda demands extra compensation for the additional murder of Akamatsu and Owada agrees to pay for Kobayashi's funeral. At the funeral it is revealed that his real name was Shigeru Sasaki. Aihara takes Owada to a Ginza bar he owns that is being run by Akamatsu's widow Aya, who becomes his new woman. Owada warns Kuroda that Aya is bad luck and every man who is with her ends up dead, though he might still like to sleep with her once. Owada's "big brother" Asajiro Nozaki, head of the Nozaki family of Osaka, arrives and pressures Owada to name Aihara as his successor. Instead he names Izeki as his successor and participates in a bonding ceremony with Kuroda in front of the others as witnesses, against the protests of Aihara. Kuroda and Izeki also participate in a bonding ceremony and become sworn brothers.

Owada later visits his daughter Misako at Kusunoki's bar and expresses an interest in retiring but she will not return home with him. Kusunoki visits Aihara's bar and demands money from Kuroda then returns home to find that Misako has thrown away all of his heroin, which drives him into a rage. Misako returns to her father, who has Aihara drive Kusunoki out of town and kill him. However, Aihara confides in Kusunoki that Owada plans to marry Misako off to Kuroda and demands that he must kill Owada and Kuroda in order to keep his life. Kusunoki kills Owada with the gun Aihara gave him but does not shoot Kuroda and is taken to an insane asylum.

At Owada's funeral Nozaki convinces Izeki to pass his nomination as successor to Aihara, who takes over the family. As part of the normal process of cleaning house it is suggested that Aihara have Kuroda killed, against which Kuroda's sworn brother Izeki protests. Instead it is agreed that Izeki will break ties with Kuroda, who will be expelled from the family and sent away. Kuroda is stripped of his pin but vows revenge against Aihara and his followers.

Kuroda learns from overhearing a phone call with Aya that Aihara will be driving to Osaka soon, so Kuroda and Shimura team up with Sugawa and surprise and attempt to kill Aihara on the road but fail. Aihara calls for help from a yakuza family in Hiroshima and they send Aihara off in a convoy of five cars. Kuroda and his men attack the convoy in Tamano but are warded off. Finally in Osaka, Aihara and Izeki discuss how to proceed when Izeki receives a call from Kuroda telling him that Kuroda can see him and is coming to take Aihara's life. Sugawa gets himself arrested and gives Kuroda as his name, leading Aihara to believe that Kuroda has been arrested and lets his guard down. Shimura then visits the party Nozaki is throwing for Aihara and shoots Aihara dead. Kuroda calls Izeki and congratulates him on being in a position to now become the new boss.

Cast

Production

With the success of New Battles Without Honor and Humanity, another installment was created. Fukasaku biographer and film expert Sadao Yamane feels that unlike that film, The Boss's Head features no relation to the original five-part series, but tells an original story set in a different period. Put simply, he said that the original series was about Japan having lost the war and the chaos and confusion as its youth fought to survive. Whereas that zeitgeist is not seen at all in the new trilogy. Yamane said that this film and its followup, Last Days of the Boss, both have women involved and realistic "car action."[1] Screenwriter Koji Takada stated that The Boss's Head has aspects of some real incidents but is otherwise "total fiction."[2]

Takada said that Fukasaku was unsatisfied with the first installment in the new series, and that screenwriters Susumu Saji and Yozo Tanaka could not deliver what he wanted for its sequel. He said he was brought in to work on the script at producer Goro Kusakabe's suggestion when Fukasaku was at his wit's end with Saji and Tanaka, who had given up and were relaxing, playing mahjong and drinking. Takada suggested that Tanaka was recruited specifically to have strong female characters. He said he rewrote most of that, but left several "Tanaka-style" lines and scenes for Yuriko Hishimi. The drug-addicted character of Tetsuya Kusunoki played by Tsutomu Yamazaki was already in the script before Takada got involved. He said it is rare to see a drug addict as a big role and that he personally does not like writing characters like that, but Yamazaki was able to pull off the performance. To Takada's recollection, they all spent less-than a week at an inn in Itagaki writing.[2]

Release

Arrow Films released a limited edition Blu-ray and DVD box set of all three films in the UK on August 21, 2017, and in the US on August 29, 2017. Special features include interviews with screenwriter Koji Takada and an appreciation video by Fukasaku biographer Sadao Yamane.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Yamane, Sadao (September 2016). Beyond the Films: New Battles Without Honor and Humanity (Blu-ray). Tokyo: Arrow Films.
  2. 1 2 Takada, Koji (September 2016). Koji Takada: New Stories, New Battles (Blu-ray). Tokyo: Arrow Films.
  3. ↑ "New Battles Without Honour and Humanity Dual Format". Arrow Films. Retrieved 2018-01-29.
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