Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Final Episode

1974 1h 40m JA

👍

7.2

SOLID

★7.2TMDB · 49

ActionDramaCrime

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

While Hirono is in prison, his rival Takeda turns his own crime organization into a political party, whose two executives stir up new tensions in their thirst for power.

“Some stories are better left unspoiled.”

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Cast

Bunta Sugawara
Shozo Hirono
Joe Shishido
Katsutoshi Otomo
Nobuo Yana
Ryôsuke Kaga
Nobuo Kaneko
Yoshio Yamamori
Hiroki Matsukata
Ichioka
Akira Kobayashi
Akira Takeda
Kunie Tanaka
Masakichi Makihara
Asao Uchida
Kenichi Okubo

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Kinji Fukasaku
Writers: Koichi Iiboshi, Kōji Takada
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

52 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 Shintarō Miyamoto 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 Joe Shishido and Nobuo Yana carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt0226018 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

WILD

Did you know

Only 49 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. Shintarō Miyamoto cuts. Produced in Japan. Dialogue in Japanese.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

152 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 Shintarō Miyamoto shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
6Bunta Sugawara and Joe Shishido and Nobuo Yana carry the top of the cast.
7IMDB entry: tt0226018 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
8Only 49 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.
9Classified under 9 themes, including "prison", "japan", "yakuza", "hiroshima, japan".

The technical file

Cinematography: Sadaji Yoshida
Original score: Toshiaki Tsushima
Editing: Shintarō Miyamoto
Production design: Takatoshi Suzuki
Costume design: Ken Toyonaka
Runtime: 100 min · 1h 40m
Status: Released
Original language: JA
IMDB: Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Final Episode (1974)

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.