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Yakuza Graveyard
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Radiance Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (31st May 2023). |
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The Film
 Exiled to provinces for his brutal tactics, police detective Kuriowa (Black Dagger's Tetsuya Watari) is brought to Sanno by chief Akama (Goke, The Body Snatcher from Hell's Nobuo Kaneko) in anticipation of Yakuza organization Yamashiro moving in on the smaller gambling operation of local gang Nishida whose top dog Matsunaga (Graveyard of Honor's Kenji Imai) is away serving a prison sentence. No sooner does Kuriowa return than he provokes two Nishida men into a fight and brings them in under suspicion of participating in a robbery. Eager to make peace and buy his cooperation, acting Nishida boss Sugi (Zatoichi the Outlaw's Takuya Fujioka) invites Kuriowa and Akama to a dinner and claims the beef with Yamashiro is one-sided. Kuriowa spurns the attempts at bribery from Sugi, further increasing the ire of Iwaki (The Tattooed Hitman's Tatsuo Umemiya) whose men Kuriowa has already humiliated, leaving Matsunaga's wife Keiko (Lady Snowblood's Meiko Kaji) - who controls the purse strings of the gang to apologize and attempt to ingratiate herself to him. Perhaps feeling some measure of sympathy for the gang members he humiliated when he sees the home life of one of them, Kuriowa voluntarily yoked as he is to the embittered widow of a gang member he accidentally killed gets them off the hook with the robbery and instead assigns them to help him cheat the Nishida casinos to make money so his mistress can stop working as a prostitute and buy her own bar. When they finger Yamashiro's "wild man" Ezaki (Brutal Tales of Chivalry's Nobuo Yana) already prowling the tables to cause trouble, Kuriowa tales Ezaki and discovers that he is the guest of former deputy chief Teramitsu Abara (Sword of Doom's Kei Satτ). Kuriowa comes to understand that everyone including the police have taken sides in the inevitable standoff between the gangs, and the only truly honorable people are Keiko who tries to keep the peace and Iwaki who becomes the target of a conspiracy by those in his own gang already complicit with the Yamashiro. Directed by Kinji Fukasaku whose career encompassed everything from Shochiku's campy crime caper Black Lizard to Toho's Battle Royale and its sequel, Yakuza Graveyard dates from his prolific yakuza film period at Toei that netted films like Graveyard of Honor, Cops vs Thugs, Doberman Cop, and the landmark Battles Without Honor and Humanity and its follow-up New Battles Without Honor and Humanity and was the last of his collaborations with screenwriter Kazuo Kasahara (Big Time Gambling Boss, also available from Radiance Films). Part of the latter day yakuza films when the gang members went from folk heroes to thugs, Yakuza Graveyard places the emphasis on the motivation for joining the gangs from backstories about bullied kids shamed even by their own parents to immigrants victimized by anti-Korean racism. Like the many honorable heroes of such films on both sides cop Kuriowa is disgusted with Sugi trying to bribe him and tells them to "Yakuza should act like yakuza" and even sees his old friend Hidaka (Kagemusha's Hideo Murota) as complicit when he is assigned to the Nishida task force, while Iwaki also seems disgusted by his gang attempting to cozy up to the cops there is no chance of triumph or survival as much a part of Japanese morality as the justifiably cynical attitude of these later films, and Kuriowa seals his fate with an act of violence in the absence of any possible justice through official channels. Kaji has a more secondary role than in her Nikkatsu films literally as a yakuza wife but her Keiko demonstrates an agency within the constraints of her role before nearly breaking away from it but reined in by a similar sense of duty as Kuriowa. Although far from the final nail in the yakuza genre's coffin, with a title like Yakuza Graveyard, the film is emblematic of the narrative path of many of the latter day films in the genre as gang members go from folk heroes to thugs and small organizations are swallowed by bigger, almost-corporate entities. 
Video
Largely unseen in the English-speaking territories, Yakuza Graveyard has had some less-than-satisfactory DVD releases starting with Eureka's British DVD which came from an NTSC-to-PAL converted master followed in the U.S. by Kino Video's DVD which conversely came from a PAL-to-NTSC converted master. The best option was Rapid Eye Movies' German DVD which not only used the same PAL master without conversion but featured English subtitles for the feature as well an an English-language interview with Tokyo-based American film critic Mark Schilling. Radiance Films' US/UK/Canadian Blu-ray features a 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen encode from a high definition transfer supplied by Toei. There is no information about the materials utilized or the details of the restoration but the transfer boasts good to great detail during close-ups and largely static interiors but Fukasaku's predilection for using handheld cameras during the action scenes does not lend itself to fine detail, particularly as it is mean to be a sudden chaotic shift and there are moments when it could accurately be described not as handheld but as "shaky cam." Grading is a little dark with skin tones varying from almost tan to pinkish it actually appears as though the women are made up with white foundation and the men caked with brown while color like blue and red are sedate when they appear. Since this is Toei, there is no practical means for most of us to know whether the master reflects the state of their materials or all the work they are willing to provide to an older title they are not self-distributing. 
Audio
The sole audio option is a Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track and it is no stunner as far as Japanese cinema has achieved elsehwhere with "mere" mono. The overall track is free of pops and hiss and the post-dubbed dialogue sounds clear while the music very nearly veers towards distortion at the high ends. Optional English subtitles are free of any obvious errors. 
Extras
Extras start off with an appreciation by filmmaker Kazuya Shiraishi (14:36) in which he discusses the yakuza film careers of both director Fukasaku and Kasahara, and how the screenwriter felt like Big Time Gambling Boss was the final word for him in the genre but wrote Yakuza Graveyard to respond to critics who felt he had not addressed the presence of Koreans in the yakuza. An Easter Egg (4:09) features Shiraishi discusses the influence of Fukasaku on his film The Blood of Wolves. In "The Rage and the Passion" (12:10), critic Tom Mes discusses the collaborations between director Fukasaku and actress Kaji who had moved from Nikkatsu to Toei and accepted smaller roles that afforded her more dramatic opportunities, even convincing Fukasaku who thought there was no room for females in yakuza films that yakuza wives and daughters matched their male counterparts in "rage and passion."  The disc closes out with a promotional gallery and the film's theatrical trailer (3:12).
Packaging
Not provided for review were the reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow, as well as the limited edition 32-page booklet featuring new writing on the film by Mika Ko on the representations of Koreans in the yakuza film, and newly translated re-prints of a contemporary review and writing by screenwriter Kazuo Kasahara and a removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings that are included with the first 3,000 copies.
Overall
Although far from the final nail in the yakuza genre's coffin, with a title like Yakuza Graveyard, the film is emblematic of the narrative path of many of the latter day films in the genre as gang members go from folk heroes to thugs and small organizations are swallowed by bigger, almost-corporate entities.
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