Tokyo Mafia: Battle for Shinjuku (1996) User Reviews

a superior film

[winner55 · 9/10 · 1 September 2007]

This appears to have been intended as a pre-quel to the original Tokyo Mafia series; but it has its own axes to grind, and can be (and perhaps ought to be) viewed separately. The first two films (which present two halves of the same story) are presented in a breathless B-movie style intended to push the envelop on some values of the well-established Yakusa genre just for to be hip and shocking at the same time.

The present film is after something totally different. There are plenty of shock-value bits thrown in, but with a sense of banality in their execution, rather like one finds in the films of Beat Takeshi or Takeshi Miiki - it is not simply that the people are doing very bad things, but there isn't any good for them to do, the world has grown old and corrupt. Thus the final sequence raises the whole question of whether there is any "way of the yakuza" at all, a kind of question that can't be raised in a typical genre B-movie.

Although the dialog is crisp and to the point (the original series was a bit talky), and the actors are all very good for their roles, raising the thematic question is achieved primarily through direction, camera-work, editing. For me, that makes this a superior film - a good story can't make a good film unless there is good film-making to define it; and good film-making can sometimes salvage a bad story, but bad film-making can utterly ruin a good story.

for instance, one thematic element here has to do with the electric-powered wheel-chair an aging gang-boss uses; its presentation in the film underscores the lowered expectations of the boss himself, and the fact that his gang has somehow stagnated in a world still moving on.

There's a good story here, but is it strong enough to bear the weight of such themes and their cinematic presentation? I'm not yet sure; but I'm giving the film a nine, because it's certainly worth viewing again to try to find that out.

Spoiler Warning - This is your warning

[Morgai · 3 December 2006]

If you read the summary of this movie you need to know one additional thing: it doesn't come close to telling you anything about the movie. The summary sys that there is a hit man, Yabuki Ginya (Takeuchi Riki), who you see has been shot up in the past by a character you will know later in the movie. He later comes back to Japan from his self-exile. In the process meeting up with four characters that will follow Yabuki throughout the movie.

None of the characters that become involved with the main character--except for those he knew in the Teitokai (gang that he was involved it)--have any understandable relation to him. Either he just sort of finds them or they find him. The plot was nonexistent and the characters didn't have anything to them. They were just there. I also think that the director had something against women for the movie. They were either hookers and doing their job or where being killed. The main girl who also rather ridiculous, she just made everything worse and wasn't very smart.

While there were some cool parts in this movie, the katana vs. guns bits, I couldn't make any sense out of the movie. Taking in that it is a Japanese film and that it was made in the mid 90's, it never made any sense. The beginning of the movie was a false foreshadow on the quality of the movie. It starts out very late 80's early 90's and had a good beat. The only style it had to it was that it was a definite 90's film. It also seemed obvious that the director is either Japanese-American or has studied some film in America because it has a very American feel throughout the whole movie but had Japanese actors. Style wise, I say that it was interesting. But then I got let down by the plot and characters.

If you like nearly plot less action movies (which can be awesome) or are really bored and want to try something new, I say okay, go for this movie. But if you are looking for something more substantial, then I heavily recommend that you look for a different movie, probably not by this director.