The Yakuza (1974) Retrospective

[@jhardycarroll]

Mitchum was busted for weed in 1948 and got sent to the farm for two months. When he got out, a reporter asked "How was jail. Bob?" He answered, "Like Palm Springs, but without the riffraff." He will always be the coolest, and time never got his number. Remember his last role in Dead Man where he was onscreen for less than two minutes and almost stole the movie.

[@forgivelennon5016]

A masterpiece as far as I'm concerned. Man, I miss when movies could be like this.

[@FilmJournal]

So true!

[@hollbri2]

in my book-one of the 10 best movies of the seventies

[@forgivelennon5016]

What are the other 9?

[@EvilMaleficus]

This film is A Masterpiece, period

[@mikeshannon658]

Superb and engrossing retrospective. The Yakuza has been a favorite of mine for years and your beautifully researched overview makes it clear just why the movie is so great and important. Cheers!

[@FilmJournal]

Makes my day to hear stuff like this! Thanks so much- glad you enjoyed the video!

[@frasay]

One of my favourite movies, and I think your retrospective is exceptional, thank you.

[@FilmJournal]

Wow, thank you!

[@keybistro4525]

this film is a punch in the face collab between american noir and japanese crime films. mitchum and takakura ken hits the screen straight, no chaser. both protags are tough as nails, says no BS, and can take you out with either a sawed off 12 ought or a katana. God will be cut! 💯

[@loganswiss6903]

What a great channel, George! Better late than never, I guess, but I'm a bit mad that the KZbin algorithms lead me to you only now... Oh well... Much appreciation from Switzerland 🙏🙏🙏

[@FilmJournal]

Wow! So cool to hear! I know there are more people out there who appreciate film in the way I do so it’s great when we find each other!

[@46metube]

Richard Jordan was such a loss. Great actor.

[@FilmJournal]

I agree! He made some great films though

[@a.ericschlobohm97]

Excellent and intelligent channel George for such a brilliant, articulate, and precocious cinephile. Your work here is well researched and involving through and through with this nook and cranny retrospective. Your work is elegant leaning onto cutting into the heart of international film production akin to the gutting that the Yakuza's Katana blade transects and exposes the inner workings of this body if work.

[@FilmJournal]

What a kind comment, thanks for taking the time to leave it and I’m glad you enjoyed the video. Brian DePalma’s Blow Out is next!

[@stephenenglish2211]

Just watched "The Yakuza" this weekend and then saw this video after. You absolutely nailed what I enjoyed about the film...particularly its marriage of film noir (which I've loved for years) to the Yakuza genre (which I'm just getting familiar with and will likely seek out). I appreciate the references to Paul Schrader's written work on those genres, which I'll have to look up.

[@FilmJournal]

Enjoy Schrader's writings! I was introduced to his work in college. I feel a certain strange kinship with the man.

[@itstwiz69]

I wish more people around my age liked movies like this.

[@FilmJournal]

Not many of us man- at least we have KZbin

[@jasonm.8174]

You magnificent bastard. Good to have you back. This newest entry (for a movie whose poster I’ve been a fan of for 20 years yet haven’t seen) is so good I’m stopping at 6:30 in and not coming back til I’ve seen the flick.

[@ziniethan]

The poster is sooo good

[@lewistyler462]

You clearly did your research as there's lots of good background information on the film. Excellent work sir.

[@FilmJournal]

Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed it!

[@movieman1556]

Old research. Nothing that hasn't been discussed and printed numerous times over the decades. Young people think they are unearthing amazing film facts when it's been printed before they were born!

[@davidluna2847]

Welcome back! I've been waiting for another of your reviews for some time. The Yakuza sounds excellent. I'll watch it, no doubt. So many movies, so little time. Thanks man.

[@hungrytervigon]

Yeah good movie, glad people are talking about it and keeping it alive. You make a good case for the two leads being perfectly cast. I’d like to know more about the sword fight scenes. I didn’t think people outside Japan could direct sword fight scenes like that in the 1970s. The sword fight scenes at the end reminded me of scenes in movies like the Samurai trilogy.

[@FilmJournal]

Yeah good observation, it’s so commonplace now but back that would have been fairly new to American audiences. Sword fight scenes are great.

[@retro-ronin]

This channel deserves way more views and subscribers.

[@FilmJournal]

Thank you! Always nice to hear. I’ll take off here one of these days.

[@papwithanhatchet902]

Kinji Fukasaku, of Battle Royale fame, made several excellent yakuza films in the mid 70’s: Cops vs Thugs, Graveyard of Honor, the Battles Without Honour and Humanity trilogy, and Street Mobster. Hideo Gosha’s The Wolves, and Violent Streets are also excellent. If you’re looking for period yakuza, look no further than the Zatoichi film series starring Shintaro Katsu, made between 1961 and 1973 (though he did make one more in 1989 which wasn't very good, imo).

[@snoo333]

Good to see you back. nice showcase of this movie. commentary is very enjoyable.

[@FilmJournal]

Thank you!

[@jhardycarroll]

Also, don't forget Giri/Haji, which is so smart and emotionally taut. It's much better than Tokyo Vice

[@tremblingcolors]

This movie rules and I’m with you and Tarantino on the finger cutting scene. This video has made me want to jump into yakuza movies.

[@FilmJournal]

There are some good ones but they are difficult to track down without having to buy Japanese Imports. Yakuza movies with Joe Shishido like Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards, or Cruel Gun story are really solid. He’s a great leading man. Those are pretty easy to find.

[@VideoTasties]

Is an awesome film

[@ShaneRob93]

Fantastically done video, well researched and executed. I would only suggest a brief look at pronunciation of Japanese, you mentioned 'eiga' quite a few times but the pronunciation you gave 'eega' is incorrect. Vowel sounds in Japanese are consistent, so just learning each vowel sound and how they sound when combined, such as "ei", will go a long way in getting your Japanese pronunciation right. Again, great video, but since you said 'eiga' in particular so many times, I felt it was worth mentioning.

[@FilmJournal]

Will be more prepared in the future thank you!

[@tombaker4586]

I follow reviewer and diy moviemaker " Raven films productions " for a long time...he uploaded his movie " Dead of night", i told him to make a B&W movie in that style about a Yakuza member on the run because he betrayed that world... i'm willing to put 2 K in the crowdfunding jar... he's thinking about it.

[@wimvanderstraeten6521]

Mitchum was self-deprecating. He often jokingly reffered to himself as an "actress".

[@VideoTasties]

Definitely going to watch it

[@BobbyD262]

welcome back!

[@FilmJournal]

More to come! Three more videos in the editing stages right now!

[@FilmJournal]

Including my new interview podcast show- would you like to be a guest?

[@waltervanlille2263]

The Yakuza looks great, and your video is very professional and informative. But this just reaffirmed my suspicion that I'm the only person in the world who really didn't like Taxi Driver.

[@FilmJournal]

When I saw Taxi Driver- I was a very impressionable 14 year old kid- basically any new film I saw that wasn’t Spider-Man 3 or Star Wars absolutely blew my mind. I couldn’t wrap my head around all the concepts and ideas in the film at the time but Scorsese’s vision of 1970s NY blew my mind. Felt like I was being whisked away to a scary unknown place- but it was very exciting.

[@kenrothstein8021]

Taxi Driver is overrated. I like it but it has many flaws. Here are two major ones: The 'catharsis' at the end and the snubbing of the waspy Cybill Shepherd is almost too much.

[@mooville32]

I remember when this was on UHF channels and butchered. Great that HBO MAX is still keeping the mint Warner print in rotation but for years I've been asking What Are Richard Jordan's last words? Does anyone have a clue?

[@mooville32]

,,,and thank you for the info about Warner Bros changing the intro from the original script, never knew that!

[@movieman1556]

No disrespect, I just have a hard time with young adults acting all knowledgeable on films that were released before they were born!! I saw it when it was released and was disappointed in the box office, and that Academy Award winning screenwriter Sterling Silliphant, a student of Bruce Lee's, throughly panned the film. This was also a very difficult film for Pollack as Mitchum was extremely difficult to work with as he drank a lot during the filming. To appreciate Takakura Ken, people need to view his earlier Yakuza themed films. They will then see why he was a film legend in Japan. Black Rain was horrible as Douglas was as annoying. Even the film's poster with Douglas trying to look all tough is embarrassing. Sad that Ken participated in this dreck.

[@FilmJournal]

Young adult? Thanks- I'm 30 years old.

[@Glenny-vk4np]

Absolutely, they are overlooking this movie. Sydney Pollock did an outstanding job with this unforgettable classic. On a more critical note, the profanity you drop into the commentary does not impress or add anything of substance or value whatsoever to the content. It's too easy, prosaic, and commonplace to do that. No, it's just not cool at all. No less a luminary than Alfred Hitchcock said that we had to "avoid the cliche" and when it comes to the ubiquitous use of profanity in the discourse of today's world, that's certainly good advice to follow.

[@JackTenrec-qk4zp]

Giri

[@FilmJournal]

What? Did I pronounce it wrong?

[@JackTenrec-qk4zp]

No I don't think you did, I just loved the concept and the moment in the film when Tanaka is trying to explain it to Dusty @@FilmJournal

[@tremblingcolors]

I’d like to see you make a video on the subject of film noir. It’s something that unfortunately whenever it’s even discussed now always is from a leftist perspective that can barely hide it’s contempt for the genre or else assigns it meanings that range from conjecture to downright fantasy. I know Raz0rfist has done some videos on it from the right but I think some well thought even handed coverage by someone like you is due.

[@FilmJournal]

That’d be really interesting and I have been dragging my feet on some traditional film noir. It’s tough to decide which films to pick. I have always been suspicious of the narrative surrounding why they became popular etc. why for instance would movies celebrating dingy, urban spaces, with morally gray characters have emerged at the end of WW2 when the nation was experiencing an economic boom? Why revel in depravity during what is often thought of as our most triumphant decade? Lots to think about

[@tremblingcolors]

@@FilmJournal a convincing explanation I've heard is that it's for the same reason in comics (which were always read by adults too) horror, crime, and war titles became the best selling ones. With both comics (the ones adults read) and film noir movies the people who fought in the war or worked in factory jobs while everything was rationed back home during it had lost any sort of innocence they might have had. They wanted stuff that spoke to the ugliness of life but made sure the bad guy(s) lost in the end. When people talk about film noir and it's dark subject matter they talk about the endings where the bad guys lose as if it's something bad that the film makers HAD to do because of the Hayes Code but didn't want to. I think that's nonsense, the endings are key to the movie as a whole I believe, people wanted to see the bad guys (even if only circumstantially so) lose so they could go home afterwards feeling good. The most popular genre, the western, did the same thing in a more traditional way where you're seeing the point of view of the hero but both were morality plays where good triumphs in the end and/or evil is punished. There is also the titillation aspect for a (as you said) large amount of rural Americans moving to the cities for work and being shocked by what life in the city can be like. Film noir shows them that corruption but gives them a happy ending where bad is punished unlike what they were probably seeing in real life.