The famous novelist Yukio Mishima called this film "a Greek Tragedy of Japan".This Mishima's comment is right. The story of this flick has the aura of inevitability,and the inevitability goes to the awful tragic ending. A man must kill his friend in the rule of Yakuza society,even he does not want to kill him,and the man must go to jail. This is a typical representative of chivalrous type Yakuza flicks,and the best picture of this type.Kosaku Yamashita's directing of this film is very imposing,and the photography by Ngaki Yamagishi is very beautiful,the scenario is very well written by Kazuo Kasahara(later he wrote the scenario of "Yakuza Papers"), the music of Toshiaki Tsushima fits in well with this film.This is a real masterpiece of this genre.

This is the first film I've got from Radiance Films. The packaging is amazing and it's so cool to have that movie be one that has never been released on blu ray before.

Gang boss Arakawa has fallen ill and the new leader must be named. Nakai is an outsider, Matsuda is in jail and only Ishido is suitable. Yet when Matsuda is released from prison, you can only imagine that the internal conflicts will soon grow out of control.

Directed by Kosaku Yamashita and written by Kazuo Kasahara (Battles Without Honor and Humanity), this is a film about the loyalties and codes of the Yakuza and how when those are tested, friendships are thrown away and bloody vengeance can be the only answer. By the end, Nakai can only say, "Loyalty? To hell with it, I'm just a mean murderer. Nothing more."

This is actually the fourth film in Toei's Bakuchi uchi (Gambling Den) series of Yakuza films. You don't need to see the others to watch this. Yamashita has a resume filled with more violent crime dramas that I can't wait to dig into after this. And if Matsuda looks familiar, that's because Tomisaburo Wakayama also played Ogami Itto in the six Lone Wolf and Cub films and their American remix, Shogun Assassin.