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Released from prison after serving eight years for murder, yakuza Jiro
(Akira Kobayashi) returns to his old gang - only to find it pretty much
disbanded, with his boss in sickbed and his hospital bills paid by the
powerful Hasama family. But the Hasama family has actually awaited Jiro's
release impatiently, and they are more than willing to hand him his
territory immediately: Takagawa, a rural area where a manufacturing
company wants to buy up all the farmland to build a big industrial complex
- and two rivaling yakuza clans are trying to butt in on this, both trying
to force the local farmers of their land with brutal means, then buy for
little and sell for half a fortune. Jiro, who has no more than six men at
his disposal, can't risk to go head to head with either gang, so he has
both of them infiltrated and plays them against one another until they go
into all-out war. And after the gangs have slaughtered one another to
insignificance, he steps in in the guise of a legitimate realtor and
persuades the farmers to sell their land with rational arguments - but
Jiro is a man of honour, too, so instead of just cheating the locals out
of the money, he forms a construction company in which all the farmers get
a share that builds the industrial complex - and Jiro actually enjoys
going legit and figures he has left his life of crime behind him for good,
has redeemed himself with his last coup that has turned out into a win-win
situation for everyone involved ... but not so fast, with the other gangs
gone, the Hasama family want to take over from Jiro, and when he turns
them down, he finds himself on top of the family's hitlist ... but he has
still the members of his gang who survived his Takagawa operations who he
can fall back on. But of course, all of this can only lead to a bloodbath
... Retaliation is on one side your typical yakuza flick
with all that we've come to expect from the best of them: It's running on
a high pace, carried by many a hard-boiled performance, plenty of violence
in all the right spots, the proper meanness that comes with the genre and
it has the air of coolness associated with the genre - but that said, it's
all but a run-of-the-mill genre movie, it features many an unexpected
subplot and surprising plottwist, and its very cynical approach is
something not seen very often in 1960s yakuza movies. Very enjoyable
indeed.
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amazon.co.uk
amazon.de
eThaiCD.com
find Retaliation at adultvideouniverse.com
