whenever someone died and the soundtrack began to play that might be my favorite part.

“But no one visits his grave now”. A movie of animal posture and violent gestures. Of kinetic editing as a form of political incision. It is a hell-scape of sacrificial tradition exploited in name of ambition and profit. There´s a plot, but in Fukasaku it is always secondary to how his allegoric violent images just resonate, the final violent release in particular is a wonder.

It's the post-kamikaze class, left behind by the runaway economic growth of the 1950s and just as suicidal, flying a gun instead of a Zero to their inevitable doom, taking crime families, like great war ships, down with them.

And no matter how much power a man has, no matter how cruel they are, no matter how little they value the lives of others, every one of 'em makes the same face when the gun is eventually pulled on them... cowardly, pleading, desperate, and ugly.

Less epic in scope and sprawl than the first film, also less measured. Kinji Fukasaku's rolling chaos-staging and kinetic style drive virtually every single scene this time around.

much more of a worm's-eye view than the first entry with the push-pull between honorable tradition and predatory survival manifested by the two leads. on the one hand there's the devoted Yamanaka, denied the honor of kamikaze in wartime and now motivated by his love for the daughter of the oyabun who took him in, and on the other you have Katsutoshi (Sonny Chiba, doing a pretty fantastic Mifune from SEVEN SAMURAI the whole time) as an upstart out to violently shake shit up to his advantage. to continue my pretentious line from the first film about the old codes being irradiated, these guys are like a couple of fallout neutrons careening through the gangland's atomic bonds, constantly setting off new chain reactions.

Watching the films that comprise "The Yakuza Papers" is what I imagine it is like to drink poison. Men of the yakuza are moving along to a logical end-point of filling the wounds of war with the chase for power and gunfire. There was no coming home. Fukusaka doesn't romanticize the yakuza but instead paints a picture of the horror of men who are washed away in post-war Japan.

Part two of the saga matches the original when it comes to the fast pacing, the intensity and the authenticity of the world portrayed here. This one also adds Sonny Chiba and Pinky Violence idol Meiko Kaji to the mix. That's great casting. We also get a new protagonist and like in the first one I had a little trouble keeping track of the plot and all the characters.

But I do love the direction and style Kinji Fukasaku brings to these movies. The world here really feels gritty, violent and lived in. It all looks very authentic and repulsive. So, a strong sequel that I think is on par with the original. I am still a little confused at times and emotionally detached. But I do appreciate the craftsmanship that went into these movies.

sonny chiba is frothing at the mouth in this, his gangster performance is absolutely deranged, swinging around a pistol and katana and screaming at the top of his lungs like he's a tasmanian devil spinning a tornado through the 50s yakuza underworld. it feels like any time someone casually speaks up against him that he's going to literally chew their head off their shoulders. he roots the aimless chaos of the film in a singular heretical fury that threatens to consume the script, the visuals, the characters, the whole damn thing.

I know I already mentioned I love the post war life gangster flicks of Japan but why this series works for me a lot more is the slums and fallout left after the bombing of Hiroshima. It's starts in the black market dealing in rations and evolves into gambling, drugs, prostitution, and they either evolve with what makes them money or they fall bahind. The younger families come in and introduce a much more violent world. More chaos. More death.

Also, Yamanaka broke outta prison to see Meiko Kaji. I feel you bro, I'd break outta prison for Meiko Kaji as well.