The fourth film in the series sees the aging family bosses attempting to avoid open war between the different families grappling for control of the Japanese underworld. Hemming and hawing their way thru meetings with their hot-headed young underlings the bosses effectively become powerless in the face of unchecked testosterone.

The action expands into full-blown war with gun battles and bombings turing the streets of Hiroshima, Kobe and other cities into yakuza battlefields. The general public, who in mid-60’s Japan were enjoying an economic boom, put more and more pressure on the police to reign in the reckless yakuza families.

By the end of the film a majority of the bosses are facing prison sentences and their respective yakuza clans have been neutered by intense police pressure.

It is easy to take these films as works of fiction. Remembering that much of the action is based on the memoirs of a retired yakuza who lived thru the period the films depict adds a sense of weight to the proceedings that a work of fiction would not contain.

I’m glad I finally sat down to watch these films. They are grand in scope, but intricate in their dealings between the individual bosses and their underlings. Highly recommended if you are a fan of Japanese cinema or the gritty and realistic style of filmmaking made popular in the 70’s (IE Taxi Driver).

Interesting series of Japanese gangster movies from the mid 70s. I would think this is what the US mafia in the early 30s would have been like too. A lot of gangsters, in a desperate environment, plotting and killing. One point, as a car guy. Don't say its 1950 and then immediatley have one of the main guys drive a 57 chevy! And keep driving it through the whole movie! I can understand seeing a 1972 Datsun in the city traffic, but I would think you would want the only main car to be correct. OK, said my piece. Will watch them all!

This is a five star film, without a doubt. It reminded me of a Japanese Godfather, albeit much more violent!

Old school gangster films are the best. Cant find stuff about a more vibrant and interesting era in such a gritty hard knocks light.

These are very entertaining films. They describe the history of the Yakuza in Japan from the immediate post-war period to their present (1973-74) by focussing on the careers of a handful of individuals operating in Hiroshima. I have seen these films compared to the Godfather films (the first two anyway), which were released at about the same time. They are not as polished and operatic as the Godfather films, but like the Godfather films, they do benefit from the presence of many interesting characters and situations. These movies reminded me more of The Velachi Papers in terms of production values, tone and style. This is not a bad thing in my eyes, as that film is also an entertaining look at the development of organized crime seen through the examination of one man's career. The films are a lot of fun to watch and seeing the development of the characters from era to era was fun. The image quality and sound quality on the discs is very good. The supplemental materials are also very interesting and the packaging is also well done and solid. No cardboard sleeves etc. here (I'm looking at you Marvel :))

If you're new to the genre, or want something more grounded than modern yakuza films, this is where you need to start. Real Yakuza film.

Hirono has no easy choices.

If you don't already have these films stop reading now and buy this set, they are some of the best movies ever made period and this is currently the only release offering them. Because these are must-owns I'm not gonna review the films; other people have done that and I just watched the Home Vision Entertainment DVD box set a couple months before I found out about this and wasn't gonna watch them again so soon (Although I did watch the "Complete Saga" cut that combines the first four films together). Instead I'll focus on what this Arrow set has compared to the HVE set released over ten years ago. I'm not a filmophile in the sense of being able to discuss technical aspects of the transfer and video quality, so it will be in layman terms.

First, upon buying this set you must immediately flip the slip covers over to the original poster artwork, the newly commissioned artwork is atrocious. The hardcover book is probably the best you could ask for and far above the little booklet from the HVE set. However, I'll note that as I am obsessed with yakuza films a good chunk wasn't new to me as a lot of it can be found online and I already had the book where the Fukusaku interview was first published. The "behind the scenes" article written by screenwriter Kasahara before the fourth film was even released is amazing and the clear highlight of the entire set, thank you Arrow for translating it. The history of Toei was a nice little addition too. I found the family tree of the film's characters a mess and don't think it will be much help to first time viewers; the foldout pamphlet of the tree given by HVE was better.

The Takeshi Miike interview is useless, but the interviews with the series' stunt coordinator, actor Seizo Fukumoto, episodes 3 & 4 assistant director, and episode 5 screenwriter were all good. "Remembering Kinji" with film scholar Yamane and the director's son Kenta is nice to learn stuff about Fukasaku's filmmaking and about the relationship with his son, who is also a director. The mini-doc on the Piranha Corps, a group of lesser known actors and drinking buddies who each appear in the films as several different characters, is the highlight as far as I'm concerned. The HVE extras have an interview with Kenta that just very briefly mentioned that Piranha name and I wanted to learn more ever since. Special feature wise this set beats the HVE one by its quantity, although HVE did have three good ones on Fukasaku's filmmaking, his use of violence, and the Jitsuroku subgenre.

As I said above I haven't watch the individual films yet, but did watch the Complete Saga edit. Do not throw it in thinking you can get the same experience and save time, these films can not be edited together and still make sense, especially to first time viewers. The Complete Saga was just an obvious cash grab from Toei and should only appeal to collectors. I've also skipped through the individual blu-rays and can say that to me, they are clearer/sharper than the HVE DVDs and have less grain, but they seem a little too dark.

The DVD/Blu-ray dual format is something that baffles me, just a reason to jack the price up. But hey, right now Amazon has this set for like five dollars cheaper than the DVD-only HVE set was originally. The HVE set is actually going for good prices on Ebay now. I believe I heard that Arrow might release the five films individually without the special features in which case you might want to get them that way if its cheaper, but then again if that doesn't happen you're missing out on superb films.