Bloody Territories – Review

Before Hasebe Yasuharu became known for the Alleycat Rock series and a slew of ‘pink films’ like Rape! (1976), he directed a gritty, slow-burning yakuza film called Bloody Territories (1969). The story itself is rather standard fare – several yakuza clans have met to formally disband their crime syndicate and ‘go clean.’ Only the Onogi Clan, well-known for their honorable track record, refuses to give up its hereditary occupation and continues to police its turf. Meanwhile, the rival Kansai Association begins to move into the power vacuum left in Tokyo. Onogi Clan top-dogs Yūji (Kobayashi Akira) and Yatō (Nakamura Tadao) struggle to save the group as their former allies, now legitimate businessmen, begin to use debt and extortion to squeeze them dry. Eventually, the plot shifts from survival to revenge and ends in a climactic, rain and blood-drenched showdown.

While the story itself is familiar, the late 1960s is when we begin to see a shift in the genre; the yakuza in Bloody Territories have more in common with the Japanese sararīman, who were becoming a fixture of the landscape in the 1960s, than the samurai of a bygone era. It is interesting to note that all of the yakuza clans who ‘went clean’ appear later in the film as honest businessmen who resort to a slew of dishonest acts to crush the Onogi. It is questionable that this was meant as commentary on Japanese business practices during the late 1960s, but this dynamic places the film in an interesting conceptual framework. It also provides a fairly accurate image of how yakuza probably conduct business in reality. Unsurprisingly, however, Bloody Territories pits an honest/honorable yakuza clan against dishonest/dishonorable gangsters and businessmen. In this sense, it is consistent with most studio films about organized crime; Japanese studios and directors have been under near-constant pressure from yakuza organizations to depict Japanese organized crime in a positive light. The few who try to make more negative (or perhaps ‘realistic’) films are quickly given incentives not to do so.

The best thing Bloody Territories has to offer is another strong performance by Kobayashi Akira. Perhaps a less-recognizable name than screen giants like Mifune and Nakadai, fans of yakuza films will undoubtedly recognize his handsome face in a slew of films from this period. Here, he yet again convincingly portrays an intimidating and fairly brutish gangster with a compassionate face and respect for women. He is also the only actor who has successfully managed to make cutting off his own pinky seem romantic, and I think he deserves kudos for that. Nakamura Tadao also does a good job in his supporting role; the farewell scene with his wife is particularly memorable.

While Hasebe Yasuharu is better-known for his later work in the Japanese soft-core porn industry, his earlier career is often overlooked. In addition to his work with Kobayashi Akira, he made several extremely successful films with Kaji Meiko (Alleycat Rock) that helped launch her into superstardom. Bloody Territories is a fine example of the style and themes Hasebe’s entire career would evolve around – genre/exploitation films heavily based in explicit content. This does not mean, however, that Hasebe’s work in this film is brutish or excessive. Despite its name, Bloody Territories is rather carefully directed. Like many filmmakers from the era of Japanese cinema, Hasebe’s work is influenced by Western film noir and crime films. The film noir influence is especially strong here – women stand backlit, seemingly alone in their apartments, and forgotten cigarettes smolder to ash in trays. Overall, this film a standard example of yakuza films from the period and something that fans of genre film will definitely enjoy. For the more modern or casual viewer, Bloody Territories is slow-moving, lacks the finesse of Youth of the Beast (1963), and its action and violence can’t compete with later films like Dead or Alive (1999) and Ichi the Killer (2001).