Yakuza are not usually thought of as disabled, but more than a few have had their pinky fingers, or a section thereof, sliced off with a blade. Traditionally, this disabling is punishment for violating the gang code.
In Hideo Sakaki's yakuza shocker "Kiyamachi Daruma" ("Daruma"), the situation of its disabled hero, a former boss in Kyoto's Kiyamachi entertainment district, is far more extreme. To atone for an underling's apparent betrayal of trust, the boss, Katsuura (Kenichi Endo), threw himself on the tender mercies of a rival gang. When we first see him, five years later, he has only stumps for arms and legs, and is waited on hand and foot by young gangster Sakamoto (Masaki Miura) at the behest of the current boss, Furusawa (Yuichi Kimura).
Katsuura describes himself as a daruma, an armless and legless doll that rights itself when tilted, but there is no making Katsuura right again. The film is not an uplifting tale of triumph over adversity. Based on Hiroyuki Maruno's novel of the same title, "Daruma" is violent and hard to watch.
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