New Battles Without Honor and Humanity 1 (1974)

one of my absolute favorites!

just watch it!

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Miyoshi, gangster recently released on parole, finds himself caught in the middle of his boss and partner-in-crime fight for family power. He plays neutral for as long as he can before Aoki thirst of power drags him in the conflictNew screenwriters on this project , not apart of first five . They failed to capture Fukasaku's vision , and ultimately led to getting fired and replaced for the subsequent films.

NEW BATTLES WITHOUT HONOUR AND HUMANITY is yet another in an endless wave of brutal yet stylish yakuza epics from director Kinji Fukasaku. It shares much of the cast with his original five-part series and retains Bunta Sugawara in the lead role. He plays a small-time assassin whose time in prison coincides with a rival crime boss deciding to take over the family. Said boss is played by the great Tomisaburo Wakayama, of LONE WOLF & CUB fame. Really, this film is indistinguishable from Fukasaku's other yakuza stories, featuring shocking and garish violence, lots of plotting, characters enjoying themselves, and general outrageous behaviour. It's a film that ably depicts a sense of time and place and is a nice counterpart to modern detailing of the same subject matter such as Beat Takeshi's OUTRAGE trilogy. Two sequels followed.

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 (Tomisaburō Wakayama, "Lone Wolf and Cub") attempts to seize power from the boss, and Miyoshi finds himself stuck between the two factions with no honorable way out.Following the success of the original five-part "Battles Without Honor and Humanity" series, director Kinji Fukasaku was already planning on continuing with further yakuza-themed films. However, Toei was more interested in direct sequels (even if not necessarily directly connected) so Fukasaku created a new series featuring many of the same performers from the previous series (including Bunta Sugawara) in new roles. The only actor playing the same role, in fact, is Nobuo Kaneko as family boss Yoshio Yamamori.Handled the script is Fumio Konami (known for "Female Prisoner Scorpion") and Koichi Iiboshi (who had crafted the original "Battles Without Honor and Humanity"). What we have is a strong crime tale that easily blends in with the first series. Japanese yakuza films are very much their own genre, more so than American gangsters films, and it is largely because of strong efforts like this that such a claim can be made.