Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola should feel lucky that the Yakuza films of Kinji Fukasaku weren’t imported into American theater during the ’70s. People might not have been so blown away by Mean Streets and The Godfather if they’d seen his Japanese mobster movies. At best the two directors would have been battling to be considered the Kinji Fukasaku of America. The Japanese director elevated the gangster films beyond the days of Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney. He used cinematography and editing techniques from documentaries and experimental films to create an even more intense environment for the mobsters’ violence filled lives. His five Battles Without Honor and Humanity and additional three New Battles Without Honor and Humanity are epic in the rise and impact of organized crime. Before he went deep into the series, he created Sympathy for the Underdog about a mobster looking for new turf after being away for a while.
Masuo Gunji (Big Time Gambling Boss‘s Kōji Tsuruta) gets out of prison after serving a decade. The Yakuza boss hasn’t reformed after all his time behind bars. He puts on his sunglasses and is ready to get back into the crime business with his old crew. He reconnects with his former soldiers who are eager to be criminal once more. But they can’t easily open the doors to their old headquarters and take over their old rackets. For starters, the headquarters was burned down. The game has changed while he was away. A family from Tokyo has taken over the docks in Yokohama and they’re not interested in giving him back his turf. They’ve even set it up so they’re the legitimate front running the docks and the mobsters taking their cut. Gunji and his guys decide to move their action down South. They fly into Okinawa to get a piece of the protection action on the entertainment district surrounding the U.S. military base. There’s lot of money in the nightclub scene that’s fueled with liquor snuck off the base. Gunji has to deal with the local mobsters who don’t look as powerful and organized as the Japanese gangsters from back home. They have a secret. The Okinawan gang smuggles weapons off the base along with the bottles of American whiskey. They aren’t afraid to toss hand grenades. Nothing is coming easy to Masuo Gunji in his comeback.
Sympathy For the Underdog has Kinji Fukasaku getting into the techniques that marked his Battles Without Honor and Humanity films. He sneaks handheld cameras onto the streets to get a realness of his mobster characters roaming Okinawa. He uses freeze frame optical effects to break up fights on the street. He gives the drama a feel of a documentary to bring a realness to Masuo Gunji comeback in a new land. The movie has touches of Hollywood influences. Getting his loyal mob soldiers back together feels like the reunion of the squad from Ocean’s 11. Towards the end of the movie, there’s a homage to The Wild Bunch as Masuo Gunji and his men head to a face off. Sympathy For the Underdog grabs your attention and doesn’t let go.
What is strange about Fukasaku’s major output taking decades for a proper release in America is that he worked for an American studio right before making Sympathy For the Underdog. He was part of the group of directors on the massive World War II movie Tora! Tora! Tora!. He directed parts of the film along with Richard Fleischer (Fantastic Voyage & Conan The Destroyer) and Akira Kurosawa (Ran). Why didn’t a major or even minor distributor try to import his films as “from one of the directors of…”? Before the release of The Godfather in 1972, organized crime films weren’t considered hot property. When Sidney Pollack’s The Yakuza arrived and died for Christmas 1974, distributors weren’t eager to import anything involving Japanese gangsters. The great news is that Sympathy For the Underdog still has the cinematic power to take over the screen after nearly half a century. Fukasaku is claiming his turf after all this time.
The Video is 2.35:1 anamorphic. The 1080p transfer looks as sharp as Kōji Tsuruta in his sunglasses. The Audio is uncompressed mono LPCM 2.0. The levels are fine for the score and hand grenade explosions. Movie is subtitled in English.
Audio commentary by yakuza film expert Nathan Stuart points out that this is the 9th installment of the 10 film “Gambler” series that doesn’t really connect between movies. He gives insight on the male bonding aspect of the members of the Yakuza family. Turns out one of the stars in the movie is Yakuza.
Interview with Olivier Hadouchi (17:05) who has written a biography on director Kinji Fukasaku. The French writer gets into how the director’s work is finally getting proper notice in the West. There’s a photo of Fukasaku hanging with Quentin Tarantino. The interview is in French and subtitled in English.
That Distant Territory (25:51) is a Visual essay about Okinawa by screen by film historian and author Aaron Gerow. He relates the how the Japanese islands were controlled by the US Military after the end of World War II. The place is actually closer to Taiwan than Tokyo. For a long time, the land was its own location until it was conquered by the Japanese. Okinawans were treated as second class citizens. They didn’t want to return to Japan when the US military ceased their occupation. He has clips from other movies shot in the area.
Trailer (2:47) gives us a taste of the showdown coming to Okinawa and the “scent of death.”
Limited edition booklet features an essay by Bastian Meiresonne and a vintage review of the film Kinema Junpo in 1971. The review is hilarious since the writer thinks Fukasaku was saying goodbye to the Yakuza genre. Little did they know what the director had in store for them for the rest of the ’70s.
Radiance Films present Sympathy For the Underdog: Limited Edition. Directed by Kinji Fukasaku. Screenplay by Kinji Fukasaku, Fumio Konami & Hirō Matsuda. Starring Kōji Tsuruta, Noboru Ando, Asao Koike, Hideo Murota, Harumi Sone, Tsunehiko Watase, Toru Yuri, Asao Uchida& Tadao Nakamura. Running Time: 93 minutes. Rating: Unrated. Release Date: June 25, 2024.
