Battles Without Honor and Humanity
"Battles Without Honor and Humanity" won the 1974 "Kinema Junpo" Awards for Best Film, Best Actor (Bunta Sugawara) and Best Screenplay (Kazuo Kasahara). In 2009, the magazine named it fifth on a list of the Top 10 Japanese Films of All Time. Due to the series' commercial and critical popularity it was followed by another three-part series, "New Battles Without Honor and Humanity". The film is often called the "Japanese "Godfather"," and marks a departure from traditional yakuza movies which had, for the most part, been tales of chivalry set in pre-war Japan. The overall tone of the series is bleak, violent and chaotic, expressing the futility of the struggles between yakuza families. In the western market it is also known under the titles "Tarnished Code of Yakuza" (Australia), "War Without a Code", and "The Yakuza Papers".