Hakuchû no shûgeki

The tale of a group of young punks who get involved with a criminal organization specialized in supplying sharp shooters. The yakuza is of course evoked in this solid film, but a bit confused for western audiences. The characters are interesting enough to keep your interest, especially when they talk about their backgrounds, which helps a lot to feel empathy for them; I guess that's precisely the purpose of this. A jazzy score soundtrack keeps company to the audience all long the feature, typical of those years, late sixties early seventies. Interesting camera angles too. Well, that's not an authentic yakuza film, though they are evoked. The originality is that you have an American character in this Japanese crime film.