Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Bunta Sugawara | ... | Shôzô Hirono | |
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Akira Kobayashi | ||
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Tatsuo Umemiya | ... | Iwai Shinichi |
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Toshio Kurosawa | ||
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Mitsue Horikoshi | ... | Aiko Mitsukawa |
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Hiroki Matsukata | ||
Toshie Kimura | ... | Toshika | |
Kunie Tanaka | ... | Makihara Masakichi | |
Nobuo Kaneko | ... | Yamamori | |
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Sanae Nakahara | ... | Kikue |
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Takeshi Katô | ||
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Mayumi Nagisa | ... | Mieko |
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Asao Koike | ||
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Shingo Yamashiro | ||
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Nobuo Yana | ... | Isamu Kasai |
Conflicts between Hirono's family and Yamamori's family (and their allies) are made more tense by the ambitious underlings and the police's efforts to impose a crackdown on the gangs.
The fourth installment of this series details how escalating violence amongst yakuza created a bloody fallout that resulted in the deaths of many innocent civilians. As a result of public and political pressure to crack down on the violence, the police were forced to act against the crime families they had co-existed with for so long.
You would be doing yourself a disservice watching this entry if you had not seen the previous three. It is simply the fifth hour in a close-to-eight-hour epic that examines, in fascinating detail, the rise of post-WW2 organized crime in Japan.
This is a particularly bloody, nasty installment that is filled with action, intrigue, political maneuvering and vicious back-stabbing.
Fukasaku's grasp of the material is firm and the performances remain at the highest standard.
Terrific.