Movie Details
| Title: | The Yakuza | |
| Director: | Sydney Pollack | |
| Year: | 1974 | |
| Genre: | Gangster | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 12.29.25 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (5)
- The Interpreter
- Jeremiah Johnson
- Sketches of Frank Gehry
- The Shoot Horses, Don't They?
- Three Days of the Condor
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 12.29.25 | Internet | Sticking with a theme of american movies dealing with Japanese culture, Robert Mitchum plays a vet who was stationed in Japan in the war returning to help his friend whose daughter was kidnapped by a Yakuza clan after a gun deal went south. I believe Tarantino mentioned this a few times in his book as well as Biskind in Easy Riders Raging Bulls since it's Paul Schrader's first script based on an idea from his brother with a Robert Towne co-writing credit at the height of his popularity (this is nestled between Chinatown and Shampoo). In my head I thought Schrader also directed but I'm wrong it's Sydney Pollack at the height of his popularity. This is a surprisingly nuanced portrayal of Japan (surprising to me at least) although maybe this yakuza honor revenge pinky-cutting stuff was novel to American audiences upon release? I've seen a tiny handful of Japanese Yakuza movies which come off somewhat similarly but in America I just remember Shogun with Richard Chamberlain coming on when I was a kid... and the Crichton book Rising Son which was made into a mediocre movie in the 90s. I'm sure I'm missing a lot... Gung Ho... Black Rain... the Dolph Lundgren Punisher movie... Anyway, I was impressed that this story isn't about the brutish Americans stumbling into Japanese culture. Mitchum and his war buddies are knowledgeable and understanding and speak the language. Mitchum asks the brother of a woman he loved during the war to help him talk things over and things escalate into a big action scene where he and the brother shoot and katana their way through a yakuza compound. Surprising absolutely no one, I thought the action sequences were by far the worse parts of the movie. Sydney Pollack just doesn't have it in him. It's been a while since I've seen Three Days of the Condor (arguably my favorite of his films) but I don't think there was any outright action in that. I can't think of any outright action in any Pollack movie I hated Out of Africa, liked Jeremiah Johnson, liked They Shoot Horses, never saw The Way We Were, and didn't like Tootsie as much as I should have. Checking my notes, it looks like I watched some way back in 05. My notes are... sparse. In any case, the man just didn't have action in his bones. He was incapable of moving the camera fast enough to capture anything remotely thrilling. Seeing him try here is pretty sad. It doesn't have to be Kill Bill or anything, but he doesn't want to show anything. Gunshots are cuts, katana hits are off-screen or cuts. I think there's one or two shots that kinda sorta look like a sword is going into someone but otherwise it's just some fast editing and that's it. The script clearly called for the brother character to be a badass swordsman and the end feels written to explode into action but it's just not there. Still, I found everything else pretty decent. It is slow and talky but there are some lovely locations and I thought Mitchum's performance was surprisingly good. Oh, the beginning is shot on the beach, I think in Malibu. 1974 Malibu looked absolutely amazing. |
