Wolves, Pigs and Men

This tense (and rather nasty) Yakuza/Noir thriller from 1964 is worth it for the unique camera work and snazzy editing alone though of course, the fact that the great Ken Takakura plays one of three brothers who can’t see eye to eye (each of them a rotten egg), gives it considerable gravitas.

French New Wave influences are at the forefront here and right from the start, a feverish jazzy soundtrack by Isao Tomita, oddly distorted camera angles courtesy of Ichiro Hoshijima and a frantic editing style by Osamu Tanaka suggest that this is most certainly not your average Yakuza thriller… and it isn’t! What begins as a tale of three estranged brothers (two of them with a sordid past) quickly turns into a saga of double-crossing, betrayal, torture, and more betrayal. The film’s rather strange title refers to the characteristics of the main players, who are eldest brother Kuroki (Rentaro Mikuni), middle brother Jiro (Ken Takakura) and youngest brother Sabu (Kin’ya Kitaoji) who grew up in abject poverty in shanty dwellings on the outskirts of Kyoto. Kuroki left his home to afford a more luxurious lifestyle, albeit not through a decent job and hard work, but by joining a powerful Yakuza organisation. Some years later, Jiro also left home and he too doesn’t earn his crust by being honest. As for youngest brother Sabu, he stayed behind and had to care for their old and fragile mother alone. In order to demonstrate his loyalty to his Yakuza boss and his own superiority, Kuroki’s gang set up Jiro, who ended up spending five years in the slammer.

Now he’s free and this is where the actual story begins – because he’s returned to his home but a lot has changed since, plus, Kuroki isn’t happy that his brother is free. His boss, too, is nervous and orders him to watch Jiro’s every step. Meanwhile, Sabu turns up in the Phoenix Club (which is the latest venue over which Kuroki and his crime boss reign supreme) with a box containing the ashes of their mother, who has passed on after a long illness. Coldly, Kuroki hands Sabu money for a decent grave and rudely asks him to leave the establishment. Instead of organising a grave, Sabu and his friends chuck the box containing the ashes into a nearby river and sing a song until the box finally sinks. Free at last, Sabu and his friends let loose and celebrate with the money that his brother gave him for their mum’s grave. Dancing, singing, drinking, smoking and generally behaving like, well, complete pigs who live in a pig-sty, they all dream of a better life but have to acknowledge that they have neither the means nor the connections to escape their poverty-stricken life. Truth be told, they don’t have the necessary intelligence either…

Their situation may well change, however, when brother Jiro unexpectedly turns up together with a rather unsavoury character by the name of Mizuhara (Shinjiro Ehara) and throws a proposal at his younger brother: Jiro and Mizuhara are planning to ‘relieve’ the Iwasaki Group of 20 million yen during transport and now he wants Sabu and his friends to help with the heist, for a decent payout, naturally. Trust Kuroki to rain on Jiro’s parade when he ‘blackmails’ him into leaving Kyoto by giving him money for the plane ticket but well, he picked the wrong guy for sure! Jiro bluffs his older brother with fake passports and then heads to the airport together with his partner in crime and younger brother Sabu in tow – not because he intends on leaving town as Kuroki had hoped, but because he now proceeds (in a very clever way, it must be said) with the robbery… Initially, the heist seems a success but then he realises that Sabu, together with girlfriend Mako (Hiroko Shima), did a runner with the stolen bags. Suffice to say that Jiro is mighty pissed off, for he too had plans to start a new life in another country with his own girlfriend. Instead, he’s forced to track down Sabu and the loot.

It’s from this point on that things get very nasty indeed because when Sabu, returning to his ramshackle abode where his friends are waiting, realises that the stolen bags not only contain money but… drugs and more drugs, he too is pretty miffed as he feels that Jiro has had him over by offering him and his mates nowhere near enough ‘pay’ for their part in seeing the robbery through. Jiro fully expects to find Sabu back home but he isn’t and his friends won’t talk… Or perhaps they will, once Mizuhara begins with his speciality: torturing people in order to extract information. The entire situation is one big botched affair but to make things worse, Kuroki is also after his brothers and refuses to believe that Jiro has no idea where Sabu and the stolen money is, let alone the drugs. Kuroki’s boss isn’t too happy either… and that’s some understatement! As the second half of this sordid tale unfolds, so does the violence but hey, it’s a Yakuza flick after all. Kinji Fukasaku’s direction is top notch and the same can be said for the performances, in particular Takakura.

WOLVES, PIGS AND MEN has just been released on HD Blu-ray, with the first print run (2000 copies) available in a Limited Edition O-card slipcase. Bonus Features include audio commentaries, interviews, trailer, plus collector’s booklet.