Hardest Men in Town: Yakuza Chronicles of Sin, Sex & Violence

Years before Coppola’s Godfather enthralled a nation and decades before “Sopranos” and “Boardwalk Empire” fed viewers’ insatiable appetites for serial gangster melodrama, the yakuza (Japanese mafia) were mainstays of the Japanese film industry. From March 9-19, Japan Society presents the Globus Film Series Hardest Men in Town: Yakuza Chronicles of Sin, Sex & Violence, featuring 15 seminal films encompassing 50 years of snarling, swaggering, tattooed and inexplicably sexy cinema icons from Japan. In addition to celebrated classics by Hideo Gosha (The Wolves), Kinji Fukasaku (Cops vs. Thugs, Battles Without Honor and Humanity), the series includes lesser known titles and overlooked gems by Seijun Suzuki (Youth of the Beast), Takashi Miike (Dead or Alive), Rokuro Mochizuki (A Yakuza In Love, Onibi: The Fire Within) and Sydney Pollack (The Yakuza), as well as contemporary incarnations of the genre such as Takeshi Kitano’s Outrage. Among 8 premieres are 4 films never-before seen outside of Japan: Teruo Ishii’s The Walls of Abashiri Prison (pt. 3): Longing for Home, Kiyoshi Saeki’s Brutal Tales of Chivalry, Rokuro Mochizuki’s A Yakuza in Love, Toru Kawashima’s Ryuji; the U.S. Premieres of Mochizuki’s Onibi: The Fire Within, Tadashi Sawashima’s Theater of Life: Hishakaku, Hideo Gosha’s Yakuza Wives; and the New York Premiere of Outrage. Kicking off the festival, filmmaker Paul Schrader (dir.: Blue Collar, American Gigolo; writer: Taxi Driver, Last Temptation of Christ) appears March 9 to introduce The Yakuza, which he penned, and take part in a Q&A following the screening. In conjunction with the March 10 screening of Onibi: The Fire Within, Japan Society welcomes renowned author Jake Adelstein (Tokyo Vice), one of the foremost experts on organized crime in Japan, for the discussion Yakuza in Popular Media & Real Life: Cracks & Chasms. The March 11 screening of The Wolves is followed by the opening week “Gangsta Party”, with prizes for the best modern day gangster garb or any man or woman wearing the classic yakuza kimono. Steeped in cryptic ritual and customs, from full-body tattoos to missing digits, the violent, romantic world of yakuza has excited the imagination and inspired Japanese cinema since the 60s. In the darkness of movie theaters, the yakuza became the very picture of superhuman macho cool and reptilian menace. Showing grand visions of manly amity and betrayal, early productions featured chivalrous kimono-clad, sword-wielding gangsters and gamblers, who set the stage for today’s ruthless gun-toting villains dealing in debt, hustling hardcore porn and scheming and scamming in dark trades and even darker deeds. “The genre’s cultural phenomenon harkens back to the days of when samurai still embodied traditionalist values of honor, selfless duty (giri) and the noble warrior spirit (ninkyo) on the silver screen,” notes Samuel Jamier, who oversees Japan Society’s film programming and curated the series. “The yakuza–shadowy demimonde of organized crime (which included wandering gamblers and lowly peddlers)–rivaled with the noble swordsmen as the representatives of honor and heroism, in the context of a rapidly changing society trying to come to terms with a shameful defeat.” General admission is $12/$9 Japan Society members, students & seniors, EXCEPT: March 10 ($12/$8 lecture only, $12/9 film only, $16/$12 lecture & screening), and March 11 ($16/$12 including party). Patrons who purchase more than 5 tickets for at least 5 different films receive $2 off each ticket (available only in person at the box office or over the phone.)