Final Episode (1974)

 

Starring: Sugawara Bunta, Matsukata Hiroki, Kobayashi Akira, Shishido Jo, and Kin’ya Kitaoji. Director: Fukasaku Kinji. Writers: Iiboshi Koichi and Takada Koji

My multi-month marathon into Fukasaku’s masterpiece series is over…for now at least. Shozo’s bloody, brooding, and brutal life in the Yakuza reaches its natural conclusion while the chaotic criminal exploits get even more dense and elaborate. The endless pit of rage boiling underneath every single frame of this series carries over and explodes on the screen one last time (in this series at least).

Picking up 2 years after the events of Police Tactics, the world of Hiroshima Yakuza is in a state of flux. The old days are gone. You can’t commit crimes in the public sphere like used to. You can’t just be a Yakuza gang and nothing else. For these and many more reasons, Takeda (played by Kobayashi Akira, you know the popular singer) has created the Tensei Coalition. This organization, made up of the Hiroshima Yakuza families, is a corporation specializing in local businesses and a political outfit. After a few years, the police have backed off. Some members including Otomo (played by the incredibly chipmunk-cheeked Shishido Jo), Matsumura, and Makihara are not necessarily on board with this new regime. After yet another police crackdown, Takeda is thrown in jail for possessing 24 illegal handguns. Matsumura was named his replacement. Things are going fine until one of Shozo’s old friends, Terukichi Ichioka of the Ichioka-gumi, returns from jail and wants to fuck up the established order. Ichioka sends his men along with what’s left of Hirono’s gang to sporadically attack Tensei men. A complex series of betrayals and violence sends everything back into pure anarchy. Shozo’s upcoming return from prison makes everyone extremely on edge. He will want revenge and has a lot of powerful friends outside of Hiroshima. Instead of a bullet-filled onslaught to power, he retires. The old guard aren’t relevant anymore.

Throughout the increasingly epic 5-part series, you can feel an intense rage hidden behind every scene, character, and kill. It’s a Fukasaku trademark. The Battles films are his most angry and explosive by far. Final Episode’s rage is 100% earned (not to say that the others aren’t), after decades of violence and paranoia the mood in the Hiroshima tense to put it lightly. Anything could potentially set off a chain reaction with seemingly no end. The post war era was built on the backs of the Yakuza. They were some of the first and most prominent people that initiated the rebuilding process and genuinely were helpful to the community more so than the American forces. They were still criminals that killed people and did various other illegal activities. The Yakuza were integral to the increasingly prosperous society. Naturally, the competition between the families would only get worse. Fukasaku perfectly portrays how the volatile environment not just affects the Yakuza themselves but the public and police as well.

 This was featured the Police Tactics review but it bears repeating, the use of violence as a form of intimacy is all over the Final Episode. Women don’t get featured heavily in any of these, not even the legendary Meiko Kaji. It’s mad masculinity taken to a level far too high. I’m not saying this is a feminist film but it wasn’t clear to me until the 5th one that it’s harshly critical of masculinity. These men are helping the community but it’s for the purpose of face. They are pure id, driven by a corrupted ego. They were survivors of the war that came back to a devastated country. The Yakuza families preyed them with a fury. They’re young, angry, tough, and most importantly hungry. Fuck the American Occupation, this was their home. They were going to fix it the way they see fit. They are masculine to an unhealthy extreme. They can’t express emotion because that results in losing status. You have to repress everything until you’re given license to harm in an intimate

The need to constantly prove yourself in terms of how much of a man you are is a constant threat. This easily breeds fear, insecurity, and mistrust but on the flipside, there is honest love and intimacy between like-minded and united Yakuza. The most intimate those men are allowed to get is through violence. When Makihara was gunned down towards the end, the shooter is straddling him and firing at point blank range. With every bullet, Makihara writhes around underneath this younger, stronger man. In a Pinku film, this would be a graphic sex scene. It’s the polar opposite of creating life, it’s ending a life in an equally graphic way. It's not fun. It's not pleasant but you can't take your eyes off it. The passion is palpable between killer and victim. 

Shozo’s thirst for revenge was the catalyst that drove the main (if you can really say that) plot at first. Yamamori was the ultimate evil among several evil men. However, in the Final Episode things aren’t what they seem. Shozo’s most recent stint in the prison provided him much needed time to think and evolve as a man. He’s an old-fashioned gangster with enough charm to power Tokyo. When an old face reappears in his life, Terukichi Ichioka (played by the same actor who was Sakai in the first and played a character in Police Tactics), he’s tempted to stagnate. Ichioka is in effect like the Yoshio Harada character in Zigeunerweisen, a benevolent agent of chaos. The decision is difficult on Shozo but when that old benevolent agent of chaos gets gunned down, it’s time for him to move on. As the films went along, Shozo and Yamamori became less and less essential to the narrative. The web of criminal happenings went so out of control that they were lost in the shuffle. The hope is that Yamamori is eliminated in a brutal fashion that he’s had coming since the end of the first film gets dashed almost immediately. The new guard has already moved in. The endless cycle of violence is cutoff, at least for the old guard. They are either killed, imprisoned, or if they are lucky, retire. That Fukasaku rage is still there, but the younger generation is embracing it in a way that the old guard can’t contain. It’s literally been 25 years since the that Japanese woman was nearly raped by Americans in the Hiroshima slums. Times have changed but they’ve stayed exactly the same. The cycle of violence continues, at least Shozo got out (he came back in the following New Battles Without Honor And Humanity series).

  

There is simply too much to unpack in this perfect series of perfect films. If you love movies like The Godfather, Goodfellas, etc., you need to see this series.