The Battles Without Honor and Humanity series is the gold standard when it comes to movies about the Yakuza, which – for people not in the know – might be most simply defined as Japan’s equivalent of the mafia. Sometimes, the series is known as The Yakuza Papers, but honestly, Battles Without Honor and Humanity just sounds a lot cooler. There were a total of eight main films in the series, all somehow made between 1973 and 1976. Even more impressively, all eight were directed by Kinji Fukasaku, and each starred Bunta Sugawara (he played the same character in five, and then different characters in each of the other three).
Additional films related to the series have been made (one spin-off in 1979, and a pair of loose remakes in the early 2000s), but the core series can be observed as the five original movies released between 1973 and 1974 (where Sugawara plays a consistent protagonist) and a trilogy, New Battles Without Honor and Humanity, released between 1974 and 1976. With an impressive level of consistency over eight movies, it ranks as one of the best multi-part crime sagas in cinema history, with the main movies in the series ranked below from worst to best.
8 ‘New Battles Without Honor and Humanity 3: Last Days of the Boss’ (1976)
It’s impressive that the great Kinji Fukasaku – one of Japan’s best-ever filmmakers – was able to continue Battles Without Honor and Humanity for so long, but by the eighth, things were starting to run out of steam just a little, making it a good time for Fukasaku to move on to other things. Indeed, this eighth movie – New Battles Without Honor and Humanity 3: Last Days of the Boss – has an appropriate title, because it also marked the last days of this franchise’s “boss” working on the films.
While there was a little continuity featured throughout the first five movies – with an extended and convoluted gang war premise that more or less felt like part of one huge conflict – the three New Battles movies are a little more self-contained. Oddly enough, they don’t experiment with the formula much, like you might expect standalone movies to do, nor do they truly feel like they add up to one coherent whole. This contributes to the slight sense of fatigue felt while watching this final film, but it is still well-made, contains some solid action, and has the familiar feel of a Battles Without Honor and Humanity movie.
7 ‘New Battles Without Honor and Humanity 1’ (1974)
It might seem strange that New Battles Without Honor and Humanity 1 came out the same year as the final entry in the original five-part series, but it’s apparent that while that story had concluded in five parts, audiences hadn’t had enough of seeing Yakuza get into honorless and inhumane battles. So began the new trilogy with this film, with it having a little more freedom due to that “New” part in the title, which referenced how this was a different story with different characters (even if many familiar cast members return in new roles).
While the original series begins in the late 1940s, this film mostly takes place in the late 1950s, and wades into familiar territory by covering gang conflict in post-WW2 Hiroshima. Again, it’s pretty solid, but joins the third New Battles as one that’s probably only worth it for big fans of the series, given how strange it can feel going straight from the consistently thrilling five-part original series to this.
6 ‘New Battles Without Honor and Humanity 2: Head of the Boss’ (1975)
New Battles Without Honor and Humanity 2: Head of the Boss is certainly the strongest entry in the New Battles trilogy. Of the three, it feels the most confident in doing its own thing and feeling a little distinct from all the other movies (including the original five). This is because it manages to feel a great deal more focused and personal than usual, with its story centering on a lone criminal getting wrapped up with Yakuza gangs, and emphasizing how it impacts him, rather than using him as an anchor to explore an explosive and chaotic larger conflict.
The gang warfare stuff is still there, but the way this feels more personal with its focus on one guy in over his head does make it feel more straightforward and less overwhelming than the other movies. Also, it’s always great to see Meiko Kaji show up in a movie (she appeared in one of the original five films, and is most well-known for starring in Lady Snowblood, an influential and iconic samurai duology).
5 ‘Battles Without Honor and Humanity 4: Police Tactics’ (1974)
The fourth entry in the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series, Police Tactics is probably the weakest of the original five movies, but it’s still very good. By this stage in the series, the story had reached the early 1960s, with this entry standing out for being set around the time that Japan was preparing to host the 1964 Olympics (an event also covered in the spectacular 1965 documentary Tokyo Olympiad).
As a result of the world turning its gaze toward Japan, this entry follows the police turning up the heat on the warring Yakuza gangs, adding another dimension to an already complex conflict. In other ways, it’s the series running as per usual (betrayals, shootouts, wild camerawork, etc.), but the Olympics playing a part in the narrative is unique.
4 ‘Battles Without Honor and Humanity 3: Proxy War’ (1973)
The title of Battles Without Honor and Humanity 3: Proxy War lets you know right away that war’s going to play a big part here, and indeed, it’s a particularly action-packed film for the series. The protagonist of the original five movies, Shozo Hirono, builds a faction of sorts independent of the bigger crime families within this movie, with this having obvious consequences.
Hirono enjoys the extra power being a boss of even a smaller gang provides, but it also has the effect of making him more of a target, further complicating ongoing gang wars. There is a ridiculous amount to keep track of here, but it’s mostly overwhelming in a good way, and even if parts are confusing, at least it’s never boring.
3 ‘Battles Without Honor and Humanity 5: Final Episode’ (1974)
While the New Battles trilogy ensures the fifth film, Final Episode, wasn’t the “true” final episode, it does at least conclude the original series with a bang. Similar to how the fourth film introduced the police as a kind of faction, here, Final Episode turns its sights towards how politics factored into the Yakuza gang wars, exploring crime and corruption within Japan on a wider scale than before.
The results make this an appropriately ambitious and excellent crime movie within the overall saga, and the fact it’s an improvement over films #3 and #4 ensures the whole five-film story is worth sticking with until the end. And, in the end, fans sad about things concluding here didn’t have to wait long for the New Battles trilogy to come around…
2 ‘Battles Without Honor and Humanity 2: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima’ (1973)
The second movie in the Battles Without Honor and Humanity saga wins the award for best title of the eight films, because Deadly Fight in Hiroshima sums up the events of this one perfectly. This one’s notable for making series protagonist Shozo Hirono feel a little more like a supporting character, given how much attention is given to down-on-his-luck hitman Shoji Yamanaka, and the complications that arise when he falls for a crime boss’s niece.
It sounds like it could be melodramatic, but it’s still tough, gritty, and tense enough to feel like another great crime/thriller movie in the series. The way it splits its time between a new lead character and the ongoing war covered in the first film ensures this is a distinctive series highlight.
1 ‘Battles Without Honor and Humanity’ (1973)
The first film in the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series is vital for numerous reasons. It naturally started it all and helped define Yakuza movies as a sub-genre. It is the best individual entry in the series. It’s understandably the most famous of the bunch, too… but when considered within the overall crime genre, it’s still somewhat underrated.
The complex post-WW2 Yakuza war is at its most ferocious, unpredictable, and stomach-churning here, with this feeling like the most compact and important film of the bunch, thanks to its originality and uncompromising filmmaking. It’s worth watching for anyone who likes crime movies, and those who enjoy it should continue, given the impressive consistency of this crime saga as a whole.