Hiroshima Death Match (1973)

A young criminal joins a yakuza family to kill the gangsters who beat him up, but falls in love with his boss' widow niece, piling up enemies and corpses along his wayward way.

Director:

Kinji Fukasaku

Writers:

Koichi Iiboshi (story), Kazuo Kasahara (screenplay)

Stars:

Bunta Sugawara, Shin'ichi Chiba, Meiko Kaji

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Bunta Sugawara	...	Shozo Hirono
Shin'ichi Chiba	...	Katsutoshi Otomo (as Sonny Chiba)
Meiko Kaji	...	Uehara Yasuko
Shingo Yamashiro	...	Shoichi Eda
Hiroshi Nawa	...	Muraoka Tsuneo
Mikio Narita	...	Matsunaga Hiroshi
Gin Maeda	...	Shimada Koichi
Toshie Kimura	...	Mrs. Yamamori
Junko Matsudaira	...	Bar Hostess
Yoshi Katô	...	Choji Otomo
Eizô Kitamura	...	Ishida Eisuke
Akira Shioji	...	Buddhist Priest
Hideo Murota	...	Keisuke Nakahara
Nobuo Yana	...	Takuya Asano
Hôsei Komatsu

Storyline

A young criminal joins a yakuza family to kill the gangsters who beat him up, but falls in love with his boss' widow niece, piling up enemies and corpses along his wayward way.

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Plot Keywords:

kissing | foreplay | sex scene | female nudity | nudity | 

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Drama | History

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

Home Vision Entertainment (DVD Distributor)

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

28 April 1973 (Japan)

Also Known As:

Deadly Fight in Hiroshima

Filming Locations:

Hiroshima City, Hiroshima, Japan

Company Credits

Production Co:

Toei Company

Technical Specs

Runtime:

99 min (DVD)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Pays tribute to Tokyo Drifter (1966); in the scene when Yamanaka is laying low in Shozo's turf, a jazzy version of the theme song from Tokyo Drifter plays in the background. All the while Shozo is advising Yamanaka he should hide in Toyko to avoid the conflict between the two warring clans of Hiroshima - strongly similar to the story plot in Tokyo Drifter. The scene ends with Yamanaka's boss calling to give him one final mission to set him up, similar to how Tetsu's boss calls his partner to rub out Tetsu in Tokyo Drifter.

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Quotes

Katsutoshi Otomo: We live to eat nice foods and sleep with girls. What's wrong about earning some money too?

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Connections

Followed by Sono go no jingi naki tatakai (1979)

User Reviews

Epic Japanese yakuza madness from Toei

Famed Japanese director Kinji Fukasaku made a popular series of epic gangster films in Japan in the 1970s, starting with BATTLES WITHOUT HONOR AND HUMANITY. Hiroshima DEATH MATCH is the second of this five-part series and even better than the first; the first film is good but a little too sprawling and unfocused. It feels like everybody cut their teeth on that one, and went on to even better things with this.

The tale is a familiar one for anybody versed with the works of Beat Takeshi and the like: two rival crime families vie for control of post-war Hiroshima during the 1950s, and petty rivalries soon spiral out of control leading to full-blooded murder. A relatively short running time means that there's a heck of a lot of incident packed in here, ranging from love affairs to prison stays, assassination attempts, gang fights, and shoot-outs.

The production values of Hiroshima DEATH MATCH are very good indeed and there's a decidedly adult edge to the proceedings, with plenty of violence and blood thrown into the mix. The star players are all very strong too, from the mild mannered Yakuza bosses to the likes of Sonny Chiba as a spaced-out thug with violent passions. PROXY WAR followed next.