Although it has certain stylistic similarities with other movies (the extreme violence of the LONE WOLF & CUB films and the gangster shenanigans of THE GODFATHER and its ilk),BATTLES WITHOUT HONOR AND HUMANITY is very much a unique and almost surreal slice of Japanese yakuza madness.

The story is told in a choppy style and takes place over a number of years. It sees various criminal gangs emerging in post-war Japan, engaging in various rivalries with one another as various gangster bosses strive to outdo their rivals. Into this messy mix are thrown various larger-than-life characters, foremost of whom is Hirono Shozo, played with emotional relish by Bunta Sugawara.

The first half of the film is largely confusing with a large cast of similar characters all battling one another and indeed I wondered what I was watching at some points. However, it all distills down and becomes much more focused in the second half, which follows the members of a single crime family in their bid for leadership. There's little action here, but Kinji Fukasaku (BATTLE ROYALE) directs with stylish aplomb, making this a more than memorable gangster epic.

Finally buying a Blu-Ray player after my PS3 had played up one too many times so I could at last play Jose Ramon Larraz's The Coming of Sin (1978-also reviewed),this set,which has sat on my shelf waiting to be played for years (!) ,was at the top of my must-watch list. Seeing a 70's viewing challenge taking place, I at last went into battle.

View on the film:

Opening the first of their two huge box sets dedicated to the series, Arrow present a superb presentation, with the picture retaining a film grain and the soundtrack keeping the gunfire crisp, all tied up with detailed extras.

Attacking the audience with a manifesto statement of a opening shot of a mushroom cloud which descends on the crime-ridden streets of Hiroshima, a shot the film maker later said was done to establish "The genesis of the extreme violence with the gangsters almost appearing right out of the dust and smoke of the mushroom cloud...that's why we used the stock footage of the bomb going off at the beginning of the film."

Entering the project after studio head (and former yakuza member) Koji Shundo had been impressed by his work on Street Mobster (1972),directing auteur Kinji Fukasaku & his regular cinematographer of this period Sadaji Yoshida, take the refine styling of Neo-Noir and the experimentation of the Japanese New Wave (JNW),and strikes them both with a brutal Punk sensibility.

Placing the viewer up-close to assassinations performed by rival gangs, Fukasaku unloads a raw atmosphere of jagged JNW fluid cameras tracking Hirono (played by a fantastic Bunta Sugawara, who burns away the cool heroism of Noir loners of the past, for blunt-force rage) in the middle of crowds, jump-cutting to JNW newsreel blistering freeze frames and extreme close-ups of gangsters laying dead on the ground splashed over with red title cards recording their murder, (a major recurring motif of Fukasaku) and Toshiaki Tsushima's rich brass Jazz score announcing their deaths.

Loading up from the Film Noir tradition of "Ripped from the headlines" in adapting a Jingi Naki Tatakai series of articles written by Koichi Iiboshi that began in Weekly Sankei, which were based on a manuscript written by former yakuza member Kozo Mino,who wrote whilst in jail.

The screenplay by Kazuo Kasahara incredibly retains the newsreel roots by trimming exposition for JNW "in the moment", criss-crossing the various warring gangs to short, sharp, shock encounters, keeping wannabe rookie gangster Hirono on his toes in his attempt to be on the winning side in a ever shifting battle without honour and humanity.

I don't get what's with those people who think "Battles Without Honor Or Humanity" has something to do with "The Godfather". The only notable similarity is that both delve into the criminal underworlds. But so what ? "The Godfather" didn't invent this genre. Furthermore the story in "Battles" was adapted from newspaper articles describing various yakuza activities. What Kinji Fukasaku created is a brilliant, violent tale about the dark and unforgiving nature of the Japanese crime syndicates it is also a story about friendship and betrayal.

This is a tale about a group of young men who after the end of the Second World War find themselves outcasts from society, under pursuit by the authorities. They inevitably bond together and form a new crime syndicate under the leadership of boss Yamamoto. As their organization grows in power so do the internal struggles between them begin to escalate. Slowly, either from pure greed and the corruption of power or by Yamamoto's careful manipulations. It's hard not to draw comparison with "Battle Royale" Fukusako's most notable film released in the late nineties. Both present a similar in a way situation: friends fight friends for their own survival.The only difference being that here that is done in a much more subtle way. But the elements are still the same, characters are likable well fleshed-out and the viewer is thrown into an internal struggle of his own when he sees them killing each other. Fukasaku's type of narration is one that involves multiple points of view, we don't have such a strong focus on main character as most movies do, there is one of course Shozo Hirono (played by the ever great Bunta Sugawara) but he serves the role of executing the movie's catharsis, he is the one who becomes a witness to all the madness and senseless killings and it is his final actions that define that, his realization and his rebellion to it all, his final display of grief to friends lost for nothing.

The acting is superb on all fronts, with a diverse cast of characters who offer a different perspective with their own point of view. Fukasaku demonstrates his great skill as a director, his technique perfectly fitting to the movie's tone. By using a fast-paced, erratic, nearly chaotic style the action scenes offer us that taste of brutality we wouldn't have felt had they been directed in a more traditional manner. Fukasaku strays from the established formula of people getting killed fast and easy with one or two bullets instead he shows us an alternative to that : a slow, painful exercise, one that more accurately portrays the yakuza's violent lifestyle. Yet there are no large body counts, the battles are often predetermined with one side attacking an individual or small group from the other, by surprise and in overwhelming force. There really is no honor in the Japanese underworld.

"Battles Without Honor Or Humanity" is the epitome of humanity's own self-destructive nature. The one that drives us to aim for a higher financial and social standing on any means. With no regard for friends, family, honor or trust.