Synopsis
A police investigator cracks down on yakuza business, but once he realizes the police are in negotiations with certain factions, he sides with his own syndicate of choice.
Yakuza Graveyard
1976 ‘やくざの墓場 くちなしの花’ Directed by Kinji Fukasaku
Cast
Tetsuya Watari Meiko Kaji Jirô Chiba Hideo Murota Takuzō Kawatani Kin Sugai Takako Yagi Masaru Shiga Nenji Kobayashi Rocky Fujimaru Kenji Imai Harumi Sone Mikio Narita Jūkei Fujioka Junkichi Orimoto Nagisa Ōshima Kei Satō Nobuo Kaneko Takuya Fujioka Tatsuo Umemiya Seizô Fukumoto Masataka Iwao Nobuo Yana Yoshio Yoshida Yasuo Matsumoto Kenta Mayumi Satoshi Nahen Mineko Maruhira Masaharu Arikawa Show All…
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Alternative Titles
Yakuza no Hakaba: Kuchinashi no Hana, Yakuza Burial: Jasmine Flower, Jakuza no hakaba: Kučinaši no hana, Tombe de yakuza et fleur de gardénia, やくざの墓場 くちなしの花
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Theatrical
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Japan
Releases by Country
Japan
30 Oct 1976
- Theatrical
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Action! - The Way of the Yakuza: The Turbulent Battles of Fukasaku
Coming into this movie, I had certain expectations, as I was sold on this movie being among the bleakest in the director’s oeuvre, and to some extent that’s true. This is a very downbeat, psychological blend of your typical Fukasaku yakuza movie with a cop action film. You get your kicks, your gunplay, but by the end of the day, it’s a film that leans more into the psyche of this investigator, whose reckless and rough method gets him trouble, and just to show how f—ed up he is, he’s actually in a very complex relationship with this yakuza man he killed while on duty. A woman whose…
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Ok, so just revisiting this one on the recent Radiance reissue, I had seen it before and I've always placed this in B-tier Fukasaku.
The major draw backs with this is the camera work. What begins as liberating with the hand held camera, by the end of the film i just feel the DOP has done a Chris Doyle and been drunk through the whole thing. As this is to it's determent (as was this shot at sea, was the dolly uneven or was Nakajima going thru rehab/withdrawl at this time, due to all the shakes). It just makes the whole thing to busy, every scene has a tick of movement and becomes very gimmicky. I mean is this "reality"…
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"Yakuza Graveyard" is a 1978 yakuza thriller directed by Kinji Fukasaku. Fukasaku has a considerably expansive filmography, and while most are connected with his connective vision with Yakuza crime films or one his later films "Battle Royale" (2000), he also did plenty of other collective works in other genres that you would expect. This includes the Japanese portions of the dual WWII epic "Tora!, Tora!, Tora!" (1970) and the science fiction craziness that is "The Green Slime" (1968). In a directorial career that spanned for the mid to late 60's to the early 2000's when Fukasaku unfortunately died after only working on a small portion of "Battle Royale 2" (2003), there is a considerable amount of ground covered and devotion…
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Tetsuya Watari smoking & drinking while listening to psychedelic rock in bed, only getting up to punch the cop at his door, is a mood.
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I come for the crime saga, I stay for the chaos.
Kinji Fukasaku's bleak yakuza flick sees a melting pot of crooked cops and the gangsters capitalizing on such a venture. At the heart of it all is Tetsuya Watari as "Kuroiwa", a lone wolf of a police officer with sunglasses practically glued to his skull. He's a glorious piece of s**t but he's got some type of code and that's really enough to make him a hero in this nihilistic world of warring crews and slimy officers.
Meiko Kaji also stars as the wife of an imprisoned yakuza boss, and along with Kuroiwa they endure the intensifying rivalry between the Nishida family and the Yamashiro family.There's a simple…
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'You're the wildest,dumbest cop I've ever met'! The words of swaggering yakuza boss Tatsuo Umemiya. The cop he's talking about, as they recover in a hotel room after beating the shit out of one another, is Tetsuya Watari's Inspector Kuroiwa. Dumb?..that's debatable..Wild?..absolutely! He's more chaotic and out of control than any of the hoodlums he encounters on his daily beat! He spends his nights blaring blues rock at top volume in his shithole apartment buried deep in an urban hellscape of endless high-rises. When his long suffering neighbours summon a cop to caution him about the noise Watari punches him out! Incidentally,I love the tune he's playing but can't find any mention anywhere of what it is..there's only one person…
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Yes!! A much darker grittier yakuza flick from Fukasaku! I really liked how this one showed the cops being just as bad as the Yakuza they're chasing after, they pick the side that benefits them the most.
Detective Kuroiwa has lots of guilt for killing a yakuza and falling in love with his widow. So he fights a lot with yakuza. But obviously Meiko Kaji (happy belated birthday Meiko!!) helps bring him over to the Yakuza (I mean, Meiko would get me over to the Yakuza as well, just saying). But, corruption abounds, especially when the cops are with the gangsters.Lots of familiar Fukasaku faces show up again, Tetsuya Watari is great as the tortured detective trying to do the right thing. Excellent movie!
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Lone Wolf detective, Kuroiwa (Tetsuya Watari), a no nonsense, fearless cop finds himself in an impossible situation when investigating a brewing war between rival Yakuza families, Yamashiro and Nishida. Hamstrung by bureaucracy and with corrupt police bosses supporting the Yamashiro, he's forced to choose a side when he becomes friends with Nishida executive Iwata (Tatsuo Umemiya), and falls for imprisoned boss' wife Keiko (Meiko Kaji), both of whom he shares common traits with.
I find Yakuza Graveyard oddly fascinating for a number reasons. For one it's surprising that after the Toei/Police tensions that would lead to Fukasaku's 'Cops vs Thugs' and it's supposedly more sympathetic leaning towards law enforcement (which of course it both was and wasn't) and the subsequent…
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--Kazuo Kasahara needs more credit for writing great scripts. This is a clean, clear plot with great dialogue and always moving forward
--Big Mean Streets energy - Fukasaku directs with furious energy
--Terrific handheld camerawork - Something Greengrass would love
--Meiko Kaji has the best scene in the whole movie, acting with Watari near the end, with perfectly written lines that are brilliantly delivered
--Two huge performances from the leads, Watari of course & Umemiya -
I love me some Japanese Gangsta (Yakuza) movies. Especially directed by the late great Kinji Fukasaku. And I was very much looking forward to this one. Unfortunately, I feel a little underwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is a decent movie. Well shot, directed and acted. But something here with the story and the characters just did not click for me. I felt un-engaged borderline bored at times. The film felt kinda aimless to me. I never knew where is was going in not in a good way. Such uncertainty can actually be a good think and keeps things interesting. But here, I just felt lost and I did not care much for what was happening.
Again, I…
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In this Fukasaku outing, Tetsuya Watari plays a hard boiled cop up against the yakuza. Yet another renegade cop. Beating up on perps. Planting evidence. He has his own ways of dealing with things. The amazing and beautiful Meiko Kaji is in this one as well. Bloody yakuza shootouts. Ballroom fight. Drive-bys. Cop and yakuza brotherhood. A damn good score. Watari and Tatsuo Umemiya are both fuckin’ perfect. Another great ultra realistic Fukasaku gem about a man going mad.