Yakuza Film - Jitsuroku Eiga

Jitsuroku Eiga

In the 1970s, a new breed of yakuza eiga emerged, the jitsuroku series, or Docudrama. Many jitsuroku eiga were based on true stories, and filmed in a documentary style with Handy Movie Camera. This genre was popularized by Kinji Fukasaku's groundbreaking yakuza epic Battles Without Honor and Humanity. This film, which spawned four sequels, portrayed the post-War yakuza not as the honorable heirs to the samurai code, but as ruthless, treacherous street thugs. The films star Bunta Sugawara (often thought of as the anti-Ken Takakura) as a sneering ex-soldier who rises to power in the bombed-out Hiroshima underworld.