Moving beyond the true stories dramatized in the first two episodes of the Battles Without Honour and Humanity series, director Kinji Fukasaku and screenwriter Kazuo Kasahara embark on their most complex narrative yet in Proxy War, a multi-character web of alliances and betrayals set against the economic growth of Japan as it prepares to hostthe 1964 Olympic games.1960. A power vacuum is formed within the Muraoka family when underboss Uchimoto (Takeshi Katô) refuses to avenge the assassination of a superior. With the help of series hero Shôzô Hirono (Bunta Sugawara), Uchimoto pledges loyalty to the powerful Akashi gang, but is soon expelled from the Muraoka for the act. Meanwhile, Akashi rivals the Shinwa Group form their own pact with Muraoka, and the enmity between the two gangs threatens to erupt into bloody violence across all of western Japan.The labyrinthine plotline of Proxy War—which continues in episode four, Police Tactics— approaches pure Jacobean drama as power players, kingmakers, and petty soldiers clash weapons and words in a stylised ritual of alliances and betrayals. Considered by many critics to be the best episode of the series, Proxy War is complex crime drama of the highest order.
Up Next in 70's
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Battles Without Honour and Humanity
When Battles Without Honour and Humanity first hit Japanese screens in January 1973, partially inspired by the success of The Godfather, it blasted out a new Ground Zero for crime cinema not only in Japan, but in the rest of the world, and spawned a legendary series that would lead to additional ...
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Cops vs Thugs
Considered by many to be director Kinji Fukasaku's greatest single-film achievement in the yakuza genre, Cops vs Thugs was made at the height of popularity of Toei Studios' jitsuroku boom: realistic, modern crime movies based on true stories taken from contemporary headlines. Returning to the scr...
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Evil of Dracula
In Evil of Dracula, a professor takes up a new post at an all-girls school only to discover the school's principle conceals a dark secret and the pupils are in grave danger.
