The Yakuza

Sydney Pollack
Part of

55th New York Film Festival

September 29 - October 15, 2017

East meets West in the form of two iconic stars in Sydney Pollack’s Americanized take on the Yakuza movie, teaming Japanese gangster film star Ken Takakura with Mitchum in a thriller set in Tokyo. Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.

DIRECTOR
Sydney Pollack
YEAR
1974
COUNTRY
USA
RUNTIME
112 minutes

East meets West in the form of two iconic stars: Japanese gangster film star Ken Takakura teams with Mitchum in a thriller set in Tokyo’s treacherous criminal underworld. Mitchum delivers an alternately rough and sleepy, cynical and gentle performance as retired cop Kilmer, who returns to Japan after many years to help an old army buddy (Brian Keith) after his daughter is kidnapped by a yakuza boss. Navigating the complex codes of the yakuza ethos, he’s guided by Ken (Takakura), a former gangster and brother of Mitchum’s old flame, but betrayals and double crosses lie ahead in Paul Schrader’s first feature screenplay, co-written with his brother Leonard and Robert Towne. Even in his late fifties, Mitchum proves he’s fully capable of handling complex action choreography. Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.

The Yakuza
The Yakuza

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