Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima (1973) on Netflix
Shoji Yamanaka stabs several men in a Hiroshima card game and lands in prison, where he befriends Shozo Hirono. After his release, a gang beating pushes him toward Boss Muraoka's clan.
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- IMDb7.4/102,237 votes
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Plot summary
Gambler Shoji Yamanaka is convicted of stabbing several men during a card-game dispute in 1950 Hiroshima and begins a two-year prison term, where he befriends Shozo Hirono, held for murder. Out of prison, Yamanaka eats at a restaurant and cannot pay the bill; the owner, Yasuko, offers him the meal on the house. When he insists on leaving his watch as payment, a gang under Katsutoshi Otomo, son of yakuza patriarch Choji Otomo, beats him badly, and the elder Otomo stops it. Yamanaka swears revenge on the men who beat him. Boss Muraoka, Yasuko's uncle, offers him a place in his clan, and Yamanaka accepts. Muraoka assigns him to the family of his sworn brother, Kunimatsu Takanashi.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima (1973)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- An opening scene in which Yamanaka is humiliated after being nearly raped in prison, setting off his killing spree, was dropped because Minō objected — writer Kasahara believed the real hitman Mitsuji Yamagami was still revered by some yakuza. Kasahara felt the characterization suffered as a result.
- Because the black market set from the first film could not be rebuilt in time, Kasahara moved the story from the chaotic post-war era to the 1950s, which made Yamanaka's killing spree seem unbelievable and forced Hirono into scenes where he was not needed.
- The hitman Shoji Yamanaka was based on a real hitman, Mitsuji Yamagami, whose name was changed for the film and who had appeared only briefly in the original story. Screenwriter Kasahara wrote the screenplay in 65 days.
- Kasahara wrote Yamanaka as a patriotic man too young to have fought in the war, who killed with a gun instead of a fighter jet. Director Kinji Fukasaku wanted the character drawn from the class left out of the 1950s economic boom; the film used a compromise of both visions.
- It is the only film in the series not to focus on Bunta Sugawara as Shozo Hirono, following instead the yakuza hitman Shoji Yamanaka, played by Kinya Kitaoji.
