iWeekly
Japan's largest gang, the Yamaguchi Group, celebrated its 100th anniversary this year. During this century, the Yamaguchi group experienced rapid expansion in the initial period, internal firefights with successive leaders, fights with other gangs, maneuvering with the police, and reforming its own business style.
However, no amount of text can match the Japanese film industry's emotional record of this mysterious organization. Let's take a look at what the Yamaguchi Group looks like in the eyes of the Japanese.
1. "Yamaguchi Group Outer Legend • Kyushu Offensive Operation"
During its inception, the Yamaguchi Group slowly expanded from the prefectures and cities around Kobe to the city, headquartered in Kobe, and then moved from west to east into Tokyo, developing into a huge organization with more than 10,000 members. There are many films in Japan that reflect the expansion of the Yamaguchi Group, in addition to "Yamaguchi Group Gaiden • Kyushu Offensive Operation", Toei has also filmed "Live Recorded Gaiden • Osaka Electric Shock Operation" and "Japanese Violent Islands • Keihan Shen Killer Army" and other films.
2. "The Killer and the Too"
In Japan in the 1960s, gangsters fought openly and secretly, and there were three "Hiroshima Protests". A man named Mino Yukizo, who had ties to several gangs, wrote down the beginning and end of the Hiroshima struggle and published it in a magazine. His records were made by Toei into live-action gangster movies, one of which was "Killer and Tai".
3. "The Leader of Japan: The End"
The Japanese police have launched a "top battle" against gang violence, including the Yamaguchi group, and the "Japanese Leader" series of movies, in addition to showing the gang fights, also describes the classic maneuvering and dueling between the leader of the Yamaguchi group, Kazuma Sakura (that is, the third generation leader Kazuo Taoka) and the police. In the 1978 release of "The End", Sakura Kazumachi eventually became the gang overlord, but in reality, the Yamaguchi group was suffering from internal and external troubles.
4. "Domination"
In the 1980s, the Yamaguchi Group entered a period of ups and downs. Kazuo Taoka was assassinated at a nightclub in Kyoto, shot in the back of the head, and survived surgery, but has since retreated to the second line. Since then, the police have taken the opportunity to attack the Yamaguchi group, detaining about 500 senior Yamaguchi group cadres, and the Yamaguchi group is no longer stable. In order to commemorate the former underworld supremacy, director Sadao Nakajima, who is known as a gangster film professional, filmed "Domination".
5. "1750 Days of Guild Wars"
After Kazuo Taoka's death, the battle for the throne of the fourth generation leader of the Yamaguchi group triggered a fierce four-year "Yamaichi War of Resistance". Hiroshi Yamamoto was no match for Masahisa Takenaka in the battle of the group leaders, took half of the members of the Yamaguchi group and established the Ichiwa Association. However, under the suppression of the Yamaguchi group, at one point there were only more than 2,800 people left, and finally Yamamoto came to the door to apologize and disbanded the Ichiwakai. With the theme of "Yamaichi Protest", "Fierce Battle 1750 Days" was released in the 1990s as a biography of Yamaguchi.
6. "The Big Guy"
Speaking of the Japanese Yamaguchi group, it is necessary to mention Takeshi Kitano's "Gangster". The film recreates Japan's famous "1.26 Incident": on January 26, 1985, Masahisa Takenaka, the fourth-generation leader of the Yamaguchi Group, was shot dead by four Assassins in a dimly lit corridor while going to his mistress's apartment, and two of the accompanying cadres were also shot to death. It was this incident that pushed the struggle between the Yamaguchi group and the Ichiwakai into a fever pitch.
7. "The Wife of the Extreme Path"
In gangster films, men always dominate absolutely, but the writer Tian Zhuangzi has set his sights on extremely female. Based on Fumiko Taoka (kazuo Taoka's wife and daughter of the second generation leader of the Yamaguchi Group), she completed a novel titled "The Wife of the Pole Path". The film of the same name as the novel was brought to the big screen in 1986.
8. Namba Financial Legend : Emperor of the South
Since the implementation of the Japan Act on Measures to Prevent Misconduct by Members of Violent Groups in 1992, it is difficult to see a big fight in gangster movies, but it shows the color of commercial war films. In reality, Japanese gangsters, including the Yamaguchi group, have been attacked by the police and begun to transfer funds to the underground, or legal business. "Namba Financial Biography • Emperor of the South" is a more typical embodiment.