This is the second entry in Kinji Fukasaku’s Battles Without Honor and Humanity series and it introduces something the first one didn’t have… A WOMAN… in a central role! And she’s played by none other than Lady Snowblood herself (Meiko Kaji).  Despite the abundance of shoot-outs and gutter fights, there’s a greater emphasis on character in this instalment.  We meet: Katsutoshi Otomo (played by Sonny Chiba), a degenerate gangster character who sells out his own dad and goes on a…

My god, I can't imagine how fresh and modern this must have seemed in 1973. It moves faster than 99% of the crime flicks out there (almost too fast as some people have pointed out) but the pacing invokes the delirious, dislocating feeling of what it might have felt like to live amongst Yakuza in the years immediately following WW2 -- always looking over your shoulder, everyone a threat. To call the handheld camerawork "gritty" doesn't really do it justice.…

I’ve always appreciated how the Dirty Harry films have attempted to engage with the anxieties of their day through incendiary hooks that question the limits of law and order and polite society.   The Zodiac killer in Dirty Harry.  Urban terrorism in The Enforcer.  A vigilante citizen (who has a good point) in Sudden Impact.  Magnum Force is where Harry is confronted with a secret arm of the police that has resolved to use excessive force to take down criminals.…

Picked this up at the Vinegar Syndrome store during their halfway to Black Friday sale this past weekend, or more accurately: I let it slip through my fingers, discovered it is now out of print online and thought about it all weekend before going back to get it. I entered in primed to laugh based on its truly epic “so bad it’s good” reputation, and the first 20 mins or so delivered that along with the infamous “oh man oh…