is a 1973 Japanese yakuza film directed by Kinji Fukasaku. The screenplay by Kazuo Kasahara adapts a 1972 series of weekly magazine non-fiction work by writer Kōichi Iiboshi, that were rewrites of a manuscript originally written by real-life yakuza Kōzō Minō. It is the first film in a five-part series that Fukasaku made in a span of just two years.
The violent, documentary-like film chronicles the underworld tribulations of Shozo Hirono (Bunta Sugawara), a young ex-soldier and street thug-turned yakuza in post-war Hiroshima Prefecture. Starting in the open-air black markets of bombed-out Hiroshima in 1946, the film spans a period of more than ten years. The plot consists of a changing of the guard of new families and organizations with the same feuds and people, punctuated by the gritty violence.
Battles Without Honor and Humanity won the 1974 Kinema Junpo Awards for Best Film, Best Actor (Bunta Sugawara) and Best Screenplay (Kazuo Kasahara). In 2009, the magazine named it fifth on a list of the Top 10 Japanese Films of All Time. Due to the series' commercial and critical popularity it was followed by another three-part series, New Battles Without Honor and Humanity.
The film is often called the "Japanese Godfather" and marks a departure from traditional yakuza movies which had, for the most part, been tales of chivalry set in pre-war Japan. The overall tone of the series is bleak, violent and chaotic, expressing the futility of the struggles between yakuza families. In the western market it is also known under the titles Tarnished Code of Yakuza (Australia), War Without a Code, and The Yakuza Papers.
Plot In 1946 Kure, World War II veteran Shozo Hirono is sent to prison for 12 years after shooting and killing a sword-wielding yakuza for assaulting his friend, Shinichi Yamagata. After a prison brawl, Hirono is sent into solitary confinement together with another prisoner, Hiroshi Wakasugi of the Doi Family, whom he befriends. They quickly become sworn brothers and make a blood oath. Wakasugi attempts harakiri in order to get released, and promises Hirono that, if he survives the attempt, he will arrange for Yoshio Yamamori, head of the Yamamori Family, to bribe the prison warden and get him released early. Hirono gets released, and his gang of fellow ex-soldiers – Tetsuya Sakai, Seiichi Kanbara, Uichi Shinkai, Masakichi Makihara, and Shuji Yano – then join the Yamamori Family by swearing their loyalty and drinking sake during a ceremony. Wakasugi's boss, Patriarch Doi, serves as an official witness to the ceremony, along with Kenichi Okubo, patriarch of the powerful Okubo Family.
Three years later, in 1949, Hirono gets into a fight with a man named Toru Ueda at a gambling den. Since Ueda is a blood relative of Okubo's, Hirono commits yubitsume in apology. Okubo accepts, but asks Yamamori to take Ueda into his family and perform a favor for corrupt politician Shigeto Nakahara by eliminating a vote for his rival Shoichi Kanamaru, who is supported by the Doi Family in a political dispute over allotment of public resources. Sakai kidnaps and threatens one of Kanamaru's allies before the vote, allowing Nakahara's side to win, and goes into hiding afterwards. Doi finds out due to Kanbara bragging about it while drinking and beats him severely, then goes after Yamamori to kill him. However, out of loyalty to Hirono, Wakasugi stops Doi from killing Yamamori and a deal is temporarily brokered: Wakasugi will become a guest member of the Yamamori Family while Kanbara takes his place in the Doi Family.
Six months later, Doi starts moving against Yamamori and prepares to form an alliance with the Kaito Family from Hiroshima. Wakasugi confides to Hirono he intends to kill his boss to end the matter, but is stopped by Hirono telling him it is forbidden by yakuza traditions to betray one’s boss. With the other members also unwilling to act, Hirono volunteers to handle the matter himself to which an emotional Yamamori agrees to leave him his property and will. Hirono successfully assassinates Doi while he's coming out of a meeting with the Kaito Family and escapes. While in hiding, Hirono is visited by Kanbara, who claims Yamamori has sent him to sneak him out of the city. Initially reluctant and suspicious of Kanbara, he gives in shortly after. However, mid-drive, as Kanbara stops to check the engine, a car approaches and opens fire. Hirono flees on foot, and with Kanbara nowhere to be seen, Hirono realizes it was a set-up; finding himself both abandoned by Yamamori and hunted by the Doi Family, he turns himself in for murdering Doi. Wakasugi visits Hirono in prison and raises his suspicions of Yamamori, and tells him he will be taking a trip for some time. Wakasugi murders Kanbara in revenge and goes into hiding, intending to leave for Osaka, but an anonymous tip to the police (provided by Yamamori) leads them to his girlfriend and her parents’s house. After a gunfight with the police, Wakasugi is killed trying to escape.
With the Korean War raging in the 1950s, the Yamamori Family thrives thanks to war contracts and expands in the immediate years, but internal strife begins when members start dealing philopon due to the high kickbacks the boss takes off their earnings. Sakai and Shinkai, who are now high-ranking officers in the family, feud when Shinkai's subordinate, Toshio Arita, who deals the drug against Yamamori's orders. Sakai, agreeing with Shinkai that the boss's take is too high, offers a plan to have each family member become self-sustaining and limit the kickbacks, which only Shinkai and Yano vote against. Shinkai begins plotting with the surviving Doi Family members to kill Sakai. When it's revealed that Yamamori is selling the drugs he confiscates from the other members for personal profit, Sakai and Ueda threaten him and reveal their intention to take over the family. Yamamori has Arita kill Ueda in a barbershop and war breaks out between the two sides. The conflict ends quickly: Shinkai's men and the Doi Family members are murdered by Sakai's associates, Arita shoots a police officer who tries to arrest him and gets a life sentence, and Shinkai is stabbed to death before he can board a train to escape the city.
Hirono's sentence is commuted and he is released from Gifu Prison on parole. He quickly learns about the strife in the Yamamori Family, after which Yamamori takes him out to eat and asks him to kill Sakai, before leaving and making him take on the bill. A subordinate points out that Yamamori is now a rich and sly entrepreneur. Hirono visits Yamagata's former girlfriend's home to pay respects to his altar and finds Sakai there, who has since moved in and had a child with her. Sakai tells Hirono that he is disgusted with Yamamori's leadership, and invites him to join the new organization he's creating, and states with the Kaito Family will also be involved. Hirono declines, but mentions to Sakai that Yamamori asked for him to be killed; while he refuses to kill him, he asks for Sakai to seek out Yamamori and make peace with him so they can rebuild the original family.
Instead, Sakai confronts Yamamori and threatens to kill him if he does not announce his retirement, which he does. Sakai forms an investment company with Yamamori's money and begins negotiating with the Kaito Family. When Makihara informs Sakai that Yano is making a secret trip to persuade the Kaito Family to end the negotiations, Sakai has him gunned down when he arrives. Makihara then contacts Hirono to join him on the supposedly retired Yamamori's side; however, Hirono refuses and instead announces he is breaking off his pledge to Yamamori and leaving his family, saying that he is just as bad as Sakai. Before leaving, they tell him where Sakai is, prompting Hirono to ask if they were the ones who originally betrayed Wakasugi. Yamamori brushes it off and says to forget about the past.
Hirono goes to see Sakai – intending to kill him for having their sworn brother, Yano, killed – but is by restrained by his subordinates. Hirono says they are no longer brothers. Sakai asks Hirono to join up with him, even offering to make him the leader of the organization of the new family he's building, saying that the only thing that ultimately matters is bringing down Yamamori, but he refuses. Sakai allows Hirono to leave, but says he often wishes he could leave the yakuza life. Hirono tells Sakai to keep his guard up. Sakai tells Hirono that he won't kill him today, but will someday. Sakai then leaves to go buy a toy for his child and is immediately murdered by Makihara's hitmen. At Sakai's funeral, with Makihara and Yamamori in attendance, Hirono arrives with a gun. Believing that Sakai would have thought the Buddhist funeral rites a farce, he shoots up the funeral display, threaten Yamamori, and leaves.
Cast Bunta Sugawara as Shozo Hirono Hiroki Matsukata as Tetsuya Sakai Nobuo Kaneko as Patriarch Yoshio Yamamori Tatsuo Umemiya as Hiroshi Wakasugi Kunie Tanaka as Masakichi Makihara Goro Ibuki as Toru Ueda Shinichiro Mikami as Uichi Shinkai Tamio Kawaji as Seiichi Kanbara Tsunehiko Watase as Toshio Arita Harumi Sone as Shuji Yano Keiji Takamiya as Shinichi Yamagata Toshie Kimura as Rika Yamamori Asao Uchida as Patriarch Kenichi Okubo Hiroshi Nawa as Patriarch Kiyoshi Doi Eiko Nakamura as Suzue Kunihiro Mayumi Nagisa as Akiko Shinjo Kinji Nakamura as Shigeto Nakahara Takuzo Kawatani as an unnamed Doi family member
Production Battles Without Honor and Humanity adapts a series of articles by journalist Kōichi Iiboshi that ran in , that were rewrites of a manuscript originally written by real-life yakuza Kōzō Minō while he was incarcerated in Abashiri Prison. The memoirs detail a yakuza conflict in Hiroshima.
Lead actor Bunta Sugawara claims that he had the initial idea to adapt the memoirs to film. He said that six months before the movie was released, he was on the cover of Shukan Sunday with Tatsuo Umemiya and read this issue that also contained the first installment of the series while on the Shinkansen. Upon arriving in Kyoto he gave it to Toei producer Koji Shundo and told him to read it. Days later, after Shundo still had not done so, Sugawara bought another copy and insisted again. The actor asked Shundo to cast him in an adaptation, with Goro Kusakabe producing and Kinji Fukasaku directing.
Screenplay Kazuo Kasahara received the order for the screenplay on September 1, 1972. He revealed that while Toei had gotten the rights to adapt the series from Iiboshi and Weekly Sankei, it seemed they had not bothered to ask Minō. Because the journals were written objectively and therefore easy to read, Kasahara had to flesh them out with details to make it dramatic. Despite Toei advising against it, Kasahara went to Kure with producer Goro Kusakabe on September 29 to meet Minō.
When Kasahara and Kusakabe first asked Minō for permission to adapt his story, he declined not wanting to receive further scorn from his fellow gang members, which he had already received for exposing the inner workings of the lifestyle. However, after learning that Minō and Kasahara both served at the Otake naval officer school in Hiroshima, Minō agreed to help clarify details about the journals but still did not approve a film adaptation.