Saigo no Tokkotai (The Last Kamikaze) is set in the final months of World War II, when it was increasingly obvious that Japan was going to lose the war.
Tag Archives: Kôji Tsuruta
Ôgon no inu / The Golden Dog (1979) Shigeyuki Yamane, Kôji Tsuruta, Yôko Shimada, Isao Natsuyagi, Drama
Head of Arms Department in the Ministry of Industry and Trade Yukichi Nagayama was caught up in corruption scandal. He puts secret documents onto microfilm and attaches it to the collar of hunting dog Goro…
Sabaku o Wataru Taiyo / The Sand City in Manchuria (1960) Kiyoshi Saeki, Sô Yamamura, Ken Takakura, Koji Tsuruta, Drama
A young doctor must save townspeople from a threatening plague.
Bakuto Kaisan-shiki / Gambler’s Farewell (1968) Kinji Fukasaku, Kôji Tsuruta, Fumio Watanabe, Tetsurô Tanba, Action, Crime
The story of men devoted to the yakuza lifestyle and their struggles during a time of fading yakuza power.
Chi-zome no daimon / Bloodstained Clan Honor (1970) Kinji Fukasaku, Bunta Sugawara, Tatsuo Umemiya, Kôji Tsuruta, Action, Crime
It takes place in the sunset days of the yakuza in the 1970s. The postwar turmoil that created the black market and lubricated illegal business opportunities was giving way to Japan Inc. A young Bunta Sugawara takes over as the oyabun of a crime syndicate in Yokohama, where he is struggling to keep operations at the port there alive. As his syndicate is eroding quickly, a major heavy industries company offers his gang the chance to chase some vagrants out of a shantytown where they are squatting on land where a factory is to be built. The job would secure steady profits for Bunta’s crime ring for years to come. However, Bunta and other members of his outfit grew up in the shanty, and they would be muscling their friends and neighbors. This sets the stage for an internal struggle that complicates the violent struggle with a rival mafia organization in Tokyo.