New Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1974 film)

New Battles Without Honor and Humanity
Japanese release poster
Directed by Kinji Fukasaku
Produced by Goro Kusakabe
Written by Fumio Konami
Misao Arai
Starring Bunta Sugawara
Tomisaburo Wakayama
Nobuo Kaneko
Kunie Tanaka
Hiroki Matsukata
Narrated by Satoshi "Tetsu" Sakai
Music by Toshiaki Tsushima
Cinematography Sadaji Yoshida
Edited by Shintaro Miyamoto
Distributed by Toei
Release date
  • December 28, 1974 (1974-12-28)
Running time
 98 minutes
Country Japan
Language Japanese
Box office ¥391,000,000[1]

New Battles Without Honor and Humanity (Japanese: 新仁義なき戦い, Hepburn: Shin Jingi Naki Tatakai) is a 1974 Japanese yakuza film directed by Kinji Fukasaku. It begins a new series of films with unrelated plots, based on the director's earlier Battles Without Honor and Humanity pentalogy. New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: The Boss's Head followed in 1975 and New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Last Days of the Boss in 1976.

Plot

Makio Miyoshi, a member of the Yamamori crime family, is involved in a bungled hit that fails to kill his target and must therefore serve a prison sentence. At the same time, Aoki, another member of the same family, is working to seize power from the family's boss, Yamamori. Aware of this threat, the boss and his wife visit Makio in prison to offer him favors in exchange for ridding them of Aoki at a future date when he is released. Aoki in turn is looking to take over the family and also seeks the support of Makio for his own bid for power. Even after his release Makio is reluctant to take sides, hoping to keep the family from tearing itself apart, but in the end he is forced to take action.

Cast

Production

Following the success of the original five-part Battles Without Honor and Humanity series, Toei asked director Kinji Fukasaku to create another installment and he quickly agreed. Fukasaku biographer and film expert Sadao Yamane believes the director did not agree chiefly for the money, but because he was glad audiences liked them.[2] New Battles Without Honor and Humanity features many of the same performers from the previous series in new roles. The only actor playing the same role is Nobuo Kaneko as family boss Yoshio Yamamori.

Yamane feels that New Battles Without Honor and Humanity clearly uses the previous five films as a template, with lead actor Bunta Sugawara playing "more or less the same character." Although he called Makio Miyoshi more of a "reckless punk" without "much depth." He also stated that Tomisaburo Wakayama's character is the same role that Hiroki Matsukata played in the original 1973 film. In Yamane's opinion, the biggest difference between the old series and the new one, is that women are featured more in the story. Put simply, he also 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.[2]

Dialogue spoken by Wakayama's character about Reiko Ike's character in a scene approximately 53 minutes into the film is censored in the original 35 mm negative and all digital copies. Toei said that the brief audio included discriminatory language about Koreans which was "frowned upon at the time," and censored prior to the film's original theatrical release in 1974.[3]

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 an appreciation video by Fukasaku biographer Sadao Yamane.[4]

References

  1. ↑ キネマ旬報ベスト・テン全史: 1946-2002. キネマ旬報社. 2003. p. 206-207. ISBN 4-87376-595-1. 和書.
  2. 1 2 Yamane, Sadao (September 2016). Beyond the Films: New Battles Without Honor and Humanity (Blu-ray). Tokyo: Arrow Films.
  3. ↑ Notice at the beginning of Arrow Films' 2017 release of New Battles Without Honor and Humanity.
  4. ↑ "New Battles Without Honour and Humanity Dual Format". Arrow Films. Retrieved 2018-01-29.
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