Police Tactics (1974)

Starring: Bunta Sugawara, Hiroki Matsukata, Tatsuo Umemiya, Akira Kobayashi, Nobuo Kaneko. Director: Kinji Fukasaku. Writer: Kazuo Kasahara. Cinematographer: Sadaji Yoshida   

Shozo’s saga is coming to a close but there’s still plenty of betrayal and bloodshed left for at 6 more movies. Fukasaku continues to expend the scope of his masterpiece series. While Shozo continues his personal journey of revenge, the world has changed. The public are tried. The police are tired. Not only him but other Yakuza are at a crossroad: go straight or stay a criminal.

 

 In the months following Shozo’s (played by Bunta Sugawara) attempt to remain “neutral” in the fight against Oyabun Yoshio Yamamori (played by Nobuo Kaneko), things have shifted drastically. In the meantime, the Hirono Family was trying to gather strength by uniting with various other families - the Gisei Group, Kawada Family, Hayakawa Family and Akashi Family...and the Uchimoto Family (Uchimoto is still a spineless coward). All the while, the Yamamori have several smaller families under their umbrella - the Makihara, Eda, and Takeda. Sadly, we don’t get much of Makihara in this one. Shozo’s blood is still boiling from the betrayal by Yamamori but there’s a problem. The newspapers are now attacking Yakuza directly in addition to the police stomping all over organized crime. The path of vengeance doesn’t follow the way Shozo wants it to. Instead of actively remaining neutral, he has no choice. The police eventually close in and promptly send him to prison. Luckily though, Yoshio Yamamori ends up in the clink (for a shortened term of course). Uchimoto avoids prison in exchange of snitching. Takeda is the only one that paid attention and turned his branch into a political party. As usual, there were dozens of new characters and storylines introduced but they’ll be brought up later.

 

 Every entry in Battles Without Honor and Humanity, gets bigger and better. The underground world of the Hiroshima Yakuza takes on an even grander scale with not just their lives at stake but the chain reaction of violence and chaos that can get set off with just a bad attitude on a bad attittude. The violence in the series is consistently cold, unpleasant, and random. In the life of an organized criminal as Uchimoto (played by Takeshi Kato) states, “When you’re out there in Yakuza society. You have to live with your shields up.” Previously, particularly in the 1st and 2nd films, an act of violence is akin to act of sex in an erotic softcore film (as opposed to the genre mashups within it, which might be arriving sooner than you think). It’s intensely personal, intimate, and arguably the most romantic these movies get. Guns are already very phallic, it’s a portable metal cock that cums bullets, this series treats the prep for an attack and constantly growing tension as foreplay. That approach is altered a bit with Police Tactics. The intimacy of killing is all but gone. The personal and romantic elements are there but things are different. The series started in 1946, this entry is set between September 1963 - January 1964. After years of the same thing and no real change, it becomes old. The violence in Police Tactics is still grim but everyone is just going through the motions. Usually, the buildup to bloodshed is on track from moment one. Here the presence of the police both nullify and amplify it. The spontaneity makes the tension even reach an even fever pitch than previous films. It’s totally deflated by the end. We still don’t get a resolution, we get yet another tease but no release. It’s a sublime move on Fukasaku’s part.

 

 So far in my coverage of the series, I haven’t commented on Yoshida’s camerawork very much. Unlike other Yakuza films and Japanese narrative films of the era, the camera isn’t just hanging out with the characters. It’s an active player in the ever-complicated war between Yakuza families. With each fight, it darts straight into the action. We see everything that happens except for the occasional montage of photographs showing what’s happening with the Yoshio Yamamori side of things. At times, it doesn’t even feel like a narrative film. The documentary feel starts with the camera and extends into the story. These are based on true events directly following World War II, it's more than fantastic fiction. It's a slice history (some liberties are taken of course) that ordinarily would be forgotten.

The driving force of the plot is Shozo’s want for revenge against Yamamori, the cordially contemptuous Takeda muddles things up everyone else’s chagrin. Takeda, just like in Proxy War, is always thinking ahead. He knows to change and evolve with the time but everyone around him thinks he’s insane. Yamamori merely wants another yes man like Makihara, who is sorely missed in this one, but can’t go too far like he used to. While Shozo is a dinosaur, he can’t change. Frequently, Shozo and Takeda are framed together - Takeda on the right and Shozo on the left. They are opposites in approach, temperament, and fashion. Visually depicting them on opposing sides of the screen is a simple representation of that relationship. In the last scene, they share a bench. Throughout the chaotic 5-month, this is the only time they see each other as humans. 

 Once again, an actor from a previous film whose character died comes back. This time, it was Hiroki Matsukata aka Sakai aka the best character of the first film comes back as a member of the Gisei Group - Shoichi Fujita. Hiroki again doesn’t survive to the end. That means…we get to see him again in the Final Episode.

Battles Without Honor And Humanity: Police Tactics is available on DVD, Blu-Ray, and Amazon Prime.