No stranger to blood, guts, gunfire and gore, Fukasaku demonstrated that he still had the golden touch with this anarchic actioner made prior to BATTLE ROYALE.
Three thieves approaching their twilight years team up with a reckless punk who screws them out of their winnings. Casualties result, but there are still enough men standing to exact bloody revenge.
Fukasaku directs in overdrive and brandishes his camera like a battering ram by salting every scene with boundless energy, wild angles, moody lighting and riveting performances, especially that of Kenichi Hagawara as Kanzaki. The "Streetfighter" himself, Sonny Chiba, also appears as one of the ageing trio, a youthful mobster who has shacked up with a crazy bimbo (Keiko Oginome) young enough to be his granddaughter and insane enough to be a problem.
By film's end, we get a wild Japanese variation on "The Great Race" as cops, loan sharks, assassins and shafted gangsters take part in a boisterous car chase cum shoot-out that shakes up the concrete jungles of Hokkaido.
The pacing is fast, the staging of the violent action is adroit and the music keeps everything pumping. Fukasaku's pseudo-documentary style brings a terrific rawness to the drama and the non-stop spectacle never becomes too heavy-handed or takes itself too seriously.
Great fun.
Three thieves approaching their twilight years team up with a reckless punk who screws them out of their winnings. Casualties result, but there are still enough men standing to exact bloody revenge.
Fukasaku directs in overdrive and brandishes his camera like a battering ram by salting every scene with boundless energy, wild angles, moody lighting and riveting performances, especially that of Kenichi Hagawara as Kanzaki. The "Streetfighter" himself, Sonny Chiba, also appears as one of the ageing trio, a youthful mobster who has shacked up with a crazy bimbo (Keiko Oginome) young enough to be his granddaughter and insane enough to be a problem.
By film's end, we get a wild Japanese variation on "The Great Race" as cops, loan sharks, assassins and shafted gangsters take part in a boisterous car chase cum shoot-out that shakes up the concrete jungles of Hokkaido.
The pacing is fast, the staging of the violent action is adroit and the music keeps everything pumping. Fukasaku's pseudo-documentary style brings a terrific rawness to the drama and the non-stop spectacle never becomes too heavy-handed or takes itself too seriously.
Great fun.