Sydney Pollack Week: The Yakuza

Subete no kon’nichwa!   Welcome to the continuation of Sydney Pollack Week and have we hooked quite a whopper today.  A story of ill-gotten gains, family struggles, honor and the willingness to follow through, this film marks for an interesting dive into Western and Eastern culture clash.  So shoes off, serve the one next to you and do not hog the spicy tuna roll.   This is The Yakuza.

That is not a happy camper.

Spoilers are as much a gift as a curse…

George Tanner (Brian Keith of Arrowhead, The Parent Trap, The Quest, Hooper, Sharky’s Machine and Hardcastle and McCormick) runs the L.A. docks and foolishly got into bed with the Yakuza (Japanese Mafia), fell behind on payments and now they demand tribute or they will kill his daughter.  Tanner calls his old army buddy Harry Kilmer (Robert Mitchum of Undercurrent, El Dorado, Out of the Past, Cape Fear, River of No Return and The Big Sleep, a private eye that is well immersed in Japanese culture.  Tanner is counting of the life debt of one Tanaka Ken (Ken Takakura of The Path of the King, Golgo 13, Mushuku, The Homeless, Hakkodasan and Black Rain) to lead Kilmer around, defeat the Yakuza and save the girl.   Dusty (Richard Jordan of Rooster Cogburn, Logan’s Run, The Mean Season, Alibis and The Hunt for Red October), Tanner’s personal bodyguard will be traveling with Kilmer as well but he looks to be no more than a gunsel.  Like the man said, “The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.”

Boomstick plus one!

Yeah two guys will be doing all this.  Infiltration, sabotage and a high count of homicide is on the order of the day.    I will also assigning Harry Callahan, John McClain and possibly Martin Riggs for this otherwise insane plan!

To abide an old debt to Tanner, Kilmer must go back to Japan and over 20 years of hurt, remorse and obligation.  During the occupation of Japan, MP Kilmer discovered a black market purchasing of American medical supplies by Eiko Tanaka (FYI Tanaka is the most common surname in Japan.  Think Smith or Jones) who he fell in love with, they romance and he even looks after her daughter Hanako as if she were his own, but for reasons a dopey Western round eye cannot fathom, she cannot marry him.  Sad and bitter Kilmer went back to the states, worked as a cop and then a shamus.   Tanaka Ken is former Yakuza and now a brilliant swords master teaching Kendo in a prestigious institute Kendo Hall in Kiyoto.

This film is a hybrid of Japanese discipline, honor with a smattering of American cynicism.  The story is simple yet elegant, the camera work from day to night is dolly tracked, handheld, long crane shots  and decent pan zooms of which is all hallmarks of a Sydney Pollack movie all shot on a Panavision anamorphic lens 35mm.   With solid collaborations with writers Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, American Gigolo, Raging Bull and Affliction) and Robert Towne (Chinatown, Heaven Can Wait, The Firm, Mission: Impossible and Mission: Impossible II) this flick has as much action as there is dialogue. 

Blam!

A little side note, I started snickering seeing one of the Yakuza reading a Manga.  Comic books are for kids, buddy.     This thriller is bloody, gunfights and katana a plenty.  This is an interesting mesh of the cultures of honor and violence that both the Americans and the Japanese are capable; it also shows heart, spirit and the willingness to overcome great obstacles.   This film deserves the same restoration love that Peckinpah's The Getaway and Friedkin's French Connection did.   I find no faults in this film with the exception it is now over.