Battles Without Honor and Humanity (a.k.a The Yakuza Papers, Vol. 1) (1973; dir. Kinji Fukasaku)—The first film in Fukasaku’s pentalogy about organized crime in post-World War II Japan justifies its title almost instantly: the opening fifteen minutes include an atomic bomb detonation, a rape, two dismemberments, an act of yubitsume (“finger shortening”), an assassination, and […]
