Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Proxy War

1973 1h 42m JA

👍

7.0

SOLID

⭐

7.3

IMDB

★7.0TMDB · 59★7.3IMDB · 1,806

ActionDramaCrime

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Shozo Hirono has managed to separate from the Yamamori family and create his own small family, and extend his circle of acquaintances. These new friendships include a powerful underboss of the Muraoka family, Noboru Uchimoto.

“Some stories are better left unspoiled.”

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Cast

Bunta Sugawara
Shozo Hirono
Takeshi Katō
Noboru Uchimoto
Akira Kobayashi
Akira Takeda
Mikio Narita
Hiroshi Matsunaga
Kunie Tanaka
Masakichi Makihara
Shingo Yamashiro
Shoichi Eda
Nobuo Kaneko
Yoshio Yamamori
Hideo Murota
Hideo Hayakawa

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Kinji Fukasaku
Writers: Koichi Iiboshi, Kazuo Kasahara
Languages: Japanese
Countries: Japan

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

ERA

Did you know

53 years old — a genuine piece of film history.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

CINEMA

Did you know

Part of the "The Yakuza Papers Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Kinji Fukasaku, shot by Sadaji Yoshida. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Toshiaki Tsushima. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Kozo Horiike shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Bunta Sugawara and Takeshi Katō and Akira Kobayashi carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt0070244 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

WILD

Did you know

Only 59 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Kinji Fukasaku directs. Sadaji Yoshida behind the camera. Toshiaki Tsushima scores. Kozo Horiike cuts. Produced in Japan. Dialogue in Japanese.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

153 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
2Part of the "The Yakuza Papers Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.
3Directed by Kinji Fukasaku, shot by Sadaji Yoshida. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
4Original score by Toshiaki Tsushima. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
5Editor Kozo Horiike shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
6Bunta Sugawara and Takeshi Katō and Akira Kobayashi carry the top of the cast.
7IMDB entry: tt0070244 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
8Only 59 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.
9Classified under 17 themes, including "assassination", "hitman", "gangster", "yakuza".

The technical file

Cinematography: Sadaji Yoshida
Original score: Toshiaki Tsushima
Editing: Kozo Horiike
Production design: Gorô Kusakabe
Costume design: Ken Toyonaka
Runtime: 102 min · 1h 42m
Status: Released
Original language: JA
IMDB: Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Proxy War (1973)
IMDB rating: 7.3/10 · 1,806 votes
MPAA: Not Rated

Part of

The Yakuza Papers Collection

While The Godfather romanticized the American Mafia in the early 1970s, Kinji Fukasaku's five-film series known as The Yakuza Papers: Battles Without Honor & Humanity revolutionized the Japanese yakuza film with unprecedented intensity. A post-World War II epic that broke Japanese box-office records, this complex, utterly authentic cycle of gangster films replaced the popular ninkyo or "chivalry" films of the '60s with jitsuroku, an entirely new breed of gangster film that rose from the ashes of Hiroshima and post-war reconstruction, depicting a meticulously detailed "alternate history" that had been ignored by the "official" factual record.