Gang vs G Men
                                             
Director:  Kinji Fukasaka
Year: 1962
Rating: 7.0
This is a sleek Yakuza film from director Kinji Fukasaku early in his career for Toei Company. Shot in colors that glisten, it looks great with the big American cars and the gangsters all dressed in sharp suits with ties and fedoras. Alleyways, bars, narrow streets and nightclubs fill the screen with style. It is an early example of ninkyo eiga which was to become a very popular genre going into the 1960s. Toei was one of the major studios to produce dozens of these with their two main leading men Koji Tsuruta and Ken Takakura - one solid and dependable and the other cool and romantic - in both Yakuza and Samurai films. This was the fourth is a series of unrelated Yakuza films called the Gyangyu series with different directors and stars.
 


Koji is in this one as an ex-Yakuza who was once legendary for his fighting skills. As Tojima he is out of the life, married to the lovely Akiko (Yoshiko Sakuma) and running a transport business. His half-brother Osamu has just gotten out of jail and wonders why his brother has gone soft. One look at Akiko should tell him. He is played by a young baby-faced Sonny Chiba with flair and bravado. Tojima is being harassed by yakuza who are part of a protection racket - he refuses to pay and his drivers are beaten up. The big boss is the prolific Tetsuro Tamba who has his fingers in every dirty pie in town.  The cops can't pin anything on him and they come to Tojima and ask him to go back to being the biggest baddest yakuza in town and shake things up and bring Tatsumura down. He agrees after another one of his men is bloodied. Get me a nice car and some men. Spread the word, I am back. The old me.



In a way it turns into The Untouchables but not with cops - a couple thieves, an ex-boxer, a sharp shooting cop and a man who wants to kill Tajima for killing his brother years before. Like all good killers, he says I will wait till you are done and then kill you, but in the meantime, I will be your bodyguard.  And Chiba infiltrates the gang. In a nice series of bust ups, they start breaking up Tatsumura's business but Tatsumura is no fool and has a lot of men. A big traditional fight at the end but not with swords but Molotov cocktails and guns. The seductive smooth nightclub singer is Tamaki Sawa, a popular singer and actress during the 60s. Fukasaku gives credit to this film for possibly saving his career - it was a box office hit and gave a new fresh look to Yakuza films.