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Goro (Tetsuya Watari) works as a Yakuza assassin this time around, but
when he's about to kill Sawada (Ryoji Hayama) because of a gambling debt
and learns the man was cheated and has a sickly wife, Aki, he has a change
of heart and tries to help Sawada and Aki escape - but Sawada is killed by
one of his henchmen anyhow but doesn't die before begging Goro to take Aki
to Nagano to receive treatment. So Goro turns against his boss Mikimoto,
steals the money he has cheated Sawada out of, and he and Aki board a
train to Nagano, but have to make an emergency stop in Yokohama when Aki
has a hert attack and needs urgent treatment. In Yokohama, Goro and his
sidekick Kubo (Eiji Go) try to stay out of trouble, but soon find
themselves helping a restaurant owner (Kaku Takashina) against the local
yakuza led by Koga (Fumio Watanabe), who just happens to be friends with
Mikitomo and soon he and his men go after Goro to avenge Mikimoto - and of
course get back the money. Also, Sawada's brother Kenji (Koji Wada) thinks
that Goro has killed Sawada and wants revenge, a former associate of Goro
who has since quit the yakuza and is a successful and totally legit
businessman, Sagara, pretty much forces his help on Goro because of an old
debt, even despite the fact that his own wife Yuri is Koga's sister ...
and to top it all of, Keiko (Chieko Matsubara), daughter of above
restaurant owner, has fallen in love with Goro, making everything much
more complicated - and even though Goro only wanted to do good, he seems
to tear everybody down in a war nobody, least of all himself, wanted ... Though
Heartless is of course an episode of the Outlaw:
Gangster VIP series, it's a film that really can stand on its
own and it's very commendable for its fatalistic approach that really goes
so far that one might call Heartless an anit-gangster movie (if
such a genre existed). And beyond that, the whole thing's also greatly
structured and features tons of action and tension in all the right places
to really make it worth your while!
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