Jevo
Registered User
- Oct 3, 2010
- 3,487
- 368
Battles without Honor and Humanity (1973) dir. Kinji Fukasaku
In the wake of WWII there's a power vacuum in the Japanese underworld. The film follows Shinzo, who starts out in the open air black markets, but soon becomes one of the leading men in a newly formed Yakuza family. Over the next ten years there's fights, murders, wars and more in the Yakuza underworld.
I wanted to like Battles Without Honor and Humanity a lot, but I couldn't. It has a great energy and is fun. But the movie was also moving so fast that I could not keep up with the character gallery, changing alliances and more. I admit that I had some lapses of attention along the way, but it really feels like once you get a little bit behind, you get way behind the action, and there's no way to get back up to speed unless you start over. I considered going back to the movie and watching it again. But considering I never got around to watching it again, it probably means my interest in it wasn't as high as I had hoped.
I think this could be a very fun film if you really stick with it, but you can't watch with half an eye for long before you get lost in the action. And then it just becomes more confusing than fun the longer it goes on.
In the wake of WWII there's a power vacuum in the Japanese underworld. The film follows Shinzo, who starts out in the open air black markets, but soon becomes one of the leading men in a newly formed Yakuza family. Over the next ten years there's fights, murders, wars and more in the Yakuza underworld.
I wanted to like Battles Without Honor and Humanity a lot, but I couldn't. It has a great energy and is fun. But the movie was also moving so fast that I could not keep up with the character gallery, changing alliances and more. I admit that I had some lapses of attention along the way, but it really feels like once you get a little bit behind, you get way behind the action, and there's no way to get back up to speed unless you start over. I considered going back to the movie and watching it again. But considering I never got around to watching it again, it probably means my interest in it wasn't as high as I had hoped.
I think this could be a very fun film if you really stick with it, but you can't watch with half an eye for long before you get lost in the action. And then it just becomes more confusing than fun the longer it goes on.