Yakusa is a recurrent topic in Japanese movies, B and even
better, as you know. I saw myself quite a few of these
Japanese films (subtitled) from the nineties, during my stay
in Asia, but did the mistake of not noting titles etc… (but
secondary data were very difficult to collect, as they were
not even translated from the credits, except for the name of
the actors). Some were very good and a lot with interesting
stories. But I doubt that they were all distributed outside
Asia. As you know, most of the Japanese films we see in
Europe and America are "export movies" with filming and
scenarios close to our standards. They do not reflect neither
the average Japanese movie, nor the way it constructs a
story, typical themes… Japanese noir/HB cinema is a very
interesting subject, difficult to explore by lack of
exportation of its current productions.
These yakuza movies (IMO) had even an influence on the Hong
Kong films
(mainly pre-1997) depicting local mafias, which were copying
themes, plots …etc from the Japanese, but in rather low grade
films with scripts defying logic and continuity (as this is
usual for 99% of the movies made in HK).
Yakusa novels are indeed stories rather popular in Japan, and
you find a lot of them in the Japanese mystery and noir
novels. And mangas. Very few were translated, which makes it
difficult for us to build an opinion on this literature, or
at least to have a detailed knowledge about it. You could
find some interesting clues about Japanese noir/HB novels in
an article by a Japanese reviewer that I have published in
"Hard-Boiled Mysteries", titled NIPPON NOIR. The author,
Naomi Hoida, is a local specialist for mystery literature and
she is also a translator of American novels. You will find
the article at: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6384
and check the chapter: Nippon Noir
E.Borgers HARD_BOILED MYSTERIES http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6384
Mark Sullivan t:
>The other day, I saw Seijun Suzuki's Branded to Kill,
a Japanese
>thriller about a yakuza killer. The professional
killer likes to sniff
>rice, which throws him into an ecstatic
trance.
>.../...
>Plotwise, it's a "program film," as Suzuki calls it
(of course, he got
>fired because the studio said this film didn't make
sense), a formulaic
>studio movie for nothing but entertainment, which
sounds a lot like
>those B movies that later came to be considered noir
classics.
>Stylistically, this black and white film also draws
from America noir,
>but even more from the French new wave.
>
>According to the movie notes, there are a whole bunch
of Japanese movies
>like this. Are there Japanese books like this? The
only one I can
>think of that comes close is Peter Tasker's series
featuring his PI
>Mori, but he's a Brit, even if he does live in Japan.
And they're far
>more recent. The Japanese mysteries I'm aware of are
higher class
>affairs, just as the Japanese movies I knew were,
such as Kurosawa's
>films. I know there are Manga of this sort, but are
there Japanese
>Yakuza novels, Japanese equivalents of Gold Medals?
And have any of
>them been translated?
>
>
>
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