Prison Boss
Year: 1968
Director: Yasuo Furuhata
Rating: 6.0/10
Gokuchu no kaoyaku
As the theme song goes "A man has to do
what a man has to do". That is especially true if he is a Yakuza who follows
the code. Not all of them do and in a territorial dispute between two rival
Yakuza factions the Tajima family follows traditions while the Honma family
feels free to break all the rules of honor. Like so many of these Yakuza
films in the 1960s the need to fulfill obligations is the driving theme that
forces the narrative. The Tajima family have won the right to be the security
at a cycling race track and the Honma's want that concession very badly,
Clearly, cycling is a much more popular gambling sport in Japan than in the
USA and there is big money in it. Worth killing for.
Hayami (Ken Takakura) is sort of a wandering
Ronin in the modern world - a Yakuza but belonging to no family. He is just
out of a nine year stretch for killing Tetsuo the Viper in a street knife
fight. But he feels obligated to the Tajima family because they took him
in and tended his wounds under the tender loving eyes of the Boss's daughter
(Junko Fuji) before he turned himself in. When the Honma family kills one
of the Tajima's he feels it is his duty to get revenge but fails and is back
in prison again for a year. In prison he meets an old childhood friend (Ryo
Ikebe) who is now part of the Honma family and who has orders to kill Hayami.
This is primarily drama with only a few
exclamation marks of violence - even the inevitable final bloodletting is
brief - the film is much more concerned about the Yakuza code, life in prison
and the love between Hayami and the daughter. So it drags a bit at times
and the noble Yakuza are almost too noble to be believable - more like a
civic family business. I was also a bit disappointed with the role given
to Fuji Junko, one of my favorite Japanese actresses.
She and Takakura paired up in loads of
Yakuza films usually of the ninkyo eiga sub-genre - i.e. period chivalry
films. In many of these she is an action figure taking care of herself at
the end of a sharp blade and I kept waiting for her to take justice into
her own hands but instead they stuck her with a flower vase role. Her father
was a major producer at the Tōei studios and helped make her a star but he
did her wrong here! This is directed by Yasuo Furuhata who was to direct
Takakura in a number of his Abashiri Prison series after this film for Toei.