Another great Japanese cops and yakuza film from Arrow, Reviewed in the United States on July 31, 2017. Fukasaku, completely at ease with this genre by now, allows the characters to develop and the relationships become firmly established before igniting the touch paper.

Acting boss Hirotani (Hiroki Matsukata) of the Ohara gang uses his friendship with corrupt cop Kuno (Bunta Sugawara) to usurp a staged land deal that rival yakuza gang Kawade had arranged through local politicians. I'm sure this is partly the director's intention, but probably not to the extent I lost it for a while. Fans of nineties cop dramas like NYPD Blue will recognise the jittery, handheld camera uses throughout, giving Cops vs Thugs a real documentary feel. In actuality, there's a good bit of recycling going on in Cops versus Thugs, with familiar actors from the Battles Without Honor and Humanity films (recently released as a box set by Arrow Video) shuffled into new roles and familiar scenarios given a fresh twist. Rousing score inspired by blaxploitation movies and a welcome and strong performance from the great Reiko Ike.

Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. This time, he carries a badge but his character hasn't lost his distaste for double-dealing bosses and authority figures who are out to cover their own butts. Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2016. COPS VS. THUGS is a Japanese yakuza movie directed by Kinji Fukasaku, and it shares themes and stylistic trademarks with his more celebrated yakuza films, SYMPATHY FOR THE UNDERDOG, GRAVEYARD OF HONOR, STREET MOBSTER, and the five-film series, THE YAKUZA PAPERS.

Available on Dual Format Blu-Ray/ DVD now. Cops Vs. Thugs Story : 1963 in der japanischen Stadt Kurashima: Zwei Yakuza Clans bekämpfen sich. Cops confront the Yakuza in crime thriller, Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2017. There is a scene where a black-and-white TV is on in an apartment and a singer is shown performing a sentimental ballad which is heard on the soundtrack as an attacker with a knife breaks in and stabs one of the occupants. Like them, it's got short sharp bursts of bloody, messy action—shootouts, stabbings, raids on rival turf, beatings of suspects, etc.--all handled in chaotic fashion, just like real-life violence.
Music is good.


Detective Kuno is played by veteran yakuza star Bunta Sugawara and we soon learn that, despite his fearlessness, the character is very much in the pocket of a local yakuza gang, having shielded one of its bosses from a murder charge six years before the events depicted here (reportedly based on a true story). They both respect codes and laws.

The filmmaker Kinji Fukasaku is best known to western cinema audiences for his final completed film, the operatically violent Battle Royale, which featured an island full of school kids forced to fight  to the death. Cops vs Thugs: Better Than the Title Implies 17 May 2017 | by gavin6942 – See all my reviews Acting boss Hirotani (Hiroki Matsukata) of the Ohara gang uses his friendship with corrupt cop Kuno (Bunta Sugawara) to usurp a staged land deal that … Cops vs. Thugs plays a lot like the director’s earlier Battles Without Honor and Humanity series, which was a gangster epic with a gritty, ripped from the headlines tone. The cars and the fashions all seem to be from the 1970s. Your email address will not be published. When a truce with the rival Kawade clan sours due to Kuno’s indirect involvement, a turf war breaks out. It's peppered with fights, gunplay, murders, and other things to get the blood pumping, but this is not some rampage-style action movie: most of the excitement comes in the form of fighting words.

Sex and violence, some debate about whether the cops or the yakuza are the good guys and then some more sex and violence. Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2018, Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2017. Never mind this really moves along and the confusion surrounding the participants and the minimal plot matters little. One of the best Yakuza films and one of the best crime films in general it's a must watch for anyone who is a fan of the genre. The repeated scenes of both police and yakuza sitting down for dinner echoes Fritz Lang’s M in their implication that the police and criminals are two sides of the same coin. Unfortunately, most of these are made of paste and repetitious nonsense. Photography meets hagiography in portrait of dated porn-deluxe snapper, A sombre and beautifully stark howl against fascism, Gory body swap sci-fi horror from brilliant genre scion, Your email address will not be published.

All The World Is Yakusa!

Interior set decoration is rather spare.