Customer Ratings & Reviews

Robert Mitchum, Takakura Ken that says it all!! Harry Kilmer returns to Japan after several years in order to rescue his friend George's kidnapped daughter - and ends up on the wrong side of the Yakuza, the notorious Japanese mafia. A man doesn't forget. A man pays his debts." Well, not in today's economy. But in 1974 paying debts meant something else. It meant honor and obligation and a code of duty among hired killers and thugs. The Japanese yakuza action movie was a staple of Japanese cinema in the 1970s, the films packed with high energy, low budgets, and gratuitous violence. Pollack's westernized version of the genre tamps down the action and examines the yakuza film like an English literature grad student, looking for subtext as characters engage in slow and ponderous dialogues about honor and duty before they erupt and pull out swords and shotguns and turn rooms into abattoirs. Neither a Japanese nor an American action film nor really a philosophical discourse over tea and sushi, The Yakuza doesn't know what it wants to be. Robert Mitchum plays Harry Kilmer, a retired detective, called back into service by old World War II army pal George Tanner (Brian Keith), who asks for his help in rescuing his daughter, who is being held in Japan by the yakuza. Tanner knows Kilmer is owed a debt of honor by ex-yakuza member Tanaka Ken (Ken Takakura, the big Japanese star of all those '70s yakuza films) and convinces him to travel back to Japan to see if Ken will honor his obligation to Kilmer by infiltrating the yakuza gang holding his daughter and bringing her back home (significantly, the daughter is no more than a unconscious blip on the radar in The Yakuza). Once there, events spin out of control, and Kilmer and Ken become embroiled in ritual obligations and mayhem. Mitchum delivers a very strong performance in a nothing part. By 1974, Mitchum was one of the few iconic film stars left and his Harry Kilmer draws upon the decades of performances that Mitchum carried around with him like a tarnished halo. When Mitchum walks the dark, neon-laced night streets of Tokyo and the shadows fall on Mitchum's tired and defeated face like melting steel, Mitchum is a walking noir god with a force of virile doom enveloping him. As the film continues and Mitchum is relegated more and more to the sidelines, the audience too feels his despair. There is plenty to like in The Yakuza (Pollack handles the action sequences with a startling energy and knows how to extract movie star mileage out of Mitchum and Takakura) Enjoy

Robert Mitchum's great screen acting is here. He is so subtle, and so believable. Great performance with minimal effort.

One of the best Yakuza movies made. Happy I found it on DVD through Bestbuy.

Very good movie and cast. Plenty of action. Yours truly Mike Ornelas.

Took a chance on this with a blind buy. I'm glad I did. I absolutely loved it

A martial arts movie with a very effective story of honor and family.

Great Classic Mitchum action movie great transfer bluray.

This is one of my all-time favorite movies. A must see!

The only hiccup that I had with the movie was in the end Mitchum finally figured out that they are married. Hello??

For a older movie transfer to blu ray is good movie itself is really good story