Tag - yakuza

 
 

YAKUZA

Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 14, 2016
'The Mole Song: Hong Kong Capriccio': Digging deep into the yakuza
Since his start as a director in 1991, Takashi Miike has accumulated nearly 100 credits, including his output for television broadcast and straight-to-video release. Far from being the faceless journeyman this number suggests, Miike is a genre auteur who has put his individual stamp on his films, with...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 1, 2016
Yamaguchi-gumi henchmen make Kobe kids an offer they can't refuse: Halloween candy
The Yamaguchi-gumi underworld group distributed candy and other snacks to children as Halloween gifts near its headquarters in Nada Ward, Kobe, according to the Kobe Shimbun.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 17, 2016
Say you're sorry: In court with Japan's rascals, killers and dope heads
The Haras were a quiet, rather ordinary Japanese couple — until they resolved to burn down their house and drive themselves and their 20-year-old daughter off a cliff.
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Sep 3, 2016
One year on, gang splinter is tough to explain
More than a year has passed since the country's largest crime syndicate, the Yamaguchi-gumi, split into two. More than a dozen gangs defected from the Yamaguchi-gumi on Aug. 27, 2015, to form the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi, headed by Kunio Inoue, as a rival syndicate and, even now, the reasons for the breakup...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 27, 2016
'The Dork, the Girl and the Douchebag': The hard-hitting brutality of gang life
Some filmmakers will go to any end for their art. Werner Herzog notoriously put cast and crew through hell in the making of "Fitzcarraldo" (1982) in the Peruvian jungle, with hundreds of indigenous people hired to drag a 320-ton steamship over a hill with real ropes and real injuries.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 20, 2016
'Ken and Kazu': The yakuza isn't all guns and glamour
Most films about the yakuza depict its members as fully formed and distinctly different from the general run of humanity, somewhat like action figures just out of the box. The reality, as Hiroshi Shoji's "Ken and Kazu" shows us with a gritty directness and power, is more quotidian. For Shoji's title...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jul 20, 2016
Tai Kato: The too-often neglected samurai- and ganster-movie master
Tai Kato (1916-85) has long ranked high on critics' lists as a neglected director, and the neglect continues, especially overseas.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Jun 4, 2016
Legal reform may start rooting out gangsters
Lawmakers in the Diet approved reform to the country's criminal justice system last month, mandating the recording of police interrogations in certain circumstances, revamping the existing wiretap law and introducing a plea bargain system for the first time.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Apr 2, 2016
The drug problem that keeps getting older
Former pro baseball player Kazuhiro Kiyohara was released from police custody on ¥5 million bail last month following his arrest and subsequent indictment for alleged possession and use of stimulant drugs.

Longform

Sociologist Gracia Liu-Farrer argues that even though immigration doesn't figure into Japan's autobiography, it is more of a self-perception than a reality.
In search of the ‘Japanese dream’