hazardes

today was a public holiday here in the UK and i had the day off work. it's the end of the month and i have no money left so the plan for today was to sit around at home, do a couple of chores around the house, have some dinner, and then watch a load of films

mission accomplished!

i ended up marathoning the last three films in the Battles Without Honour and Humanity series, which will come as a shock to you i'm sure. i said writing this blog would give me an excuse to watch them all again. i honestly don't think i've ever been as into a series of films as i am these, like i mentioned in an earlier post they're just so dense, and i really feel like i'm learning lots of things while watching them; language, history, culture, all of it very alien to someone who grew up half a world away

the third and fourth films; Proxy War and Police Tactics are the two films in the series that are the most closely linked together, Police Tactics follows directly on from the events in Proxy War, and tells how an all-out gang war erupted in Hiroshima between rival yakuza factions in 1963, and the subsequent crackdown from the authorities. the plot gets very heavy in these two, when i talked about the first film i mentioned that it can be hard to follow in places, and that is magnified here as there is so much going on, it all follows the familiar pattern of alliances, betrayals, and violent revenge, but i did find it a lot easier to keep track of who everyone was the second time round

it's funny, you'll spot an actor and be like “oh i recognise him he's so and so from the first film” but then you remember that the character he played two films ago was brutally murdered and that same actor is playing someone completely different now. this happens quite a lot

one actor i have to mention is the amazing Nobuo Kaneko who plays Boss Yamamori in all five films. i came to absolutely love him by the end, Yamamori is a slimy double-crossing cowardly snake, and Kaneko delivers such a memorable performance. he appears in loads of other Japanese films i've watched recently from around this time too, always playing similar characters – scheming bosses, corrupt politicians, he was definitely typecast, and he's great in them all. i looked him up on Wikipedia and he had a really long career, even hosting a popular cookery show on Japanese TV towards the end of his life. such a character

the fourth film Police Tactics was originally planned to be the final film in the series, and it's written that way, however it was such a success that Toei put up the money and got Fukasaku to direct one more. i'm glad they did because Final Episode is an absolute banger movie and a great send off for the series. set a few years after the events of Police Tactics, the public have turned against the yakuza and their constant violence forcing the gangs to try and rebrand as respectable businesses and a “political organisation” called Tensei. predictably this doesn't go well and infighting soon leads to more violence

you really get a sense of how tired of it all Shozo Hirono (Bunta Sugawara) is by the end, when he realises that he's become the boss sending the young footsoldiers out to die

so, which one of the five films is the best? i can't decide, please don't put a gun to my head and force me to choose, all five of them are simultaneously the best film i've ever seen, but Proxy War is probably my favourite

still can't believe i got the box set for twenty-five quid