Final Episode

Despite Police Tactics ending on a high note, I guess Toei thought there was still more to tell with this story and mandated that we get a definitive ending with nothing left unresolved. The fittingly titled Final Episode maintains the series' exceptional quality, one that doesn't feel tacked on in the slightest, easily the talkiest of the series and burdened with the task of wrapping up dozens of loose threads, it's a testament to Kinji Fukasaku's incredible talent that he and his crew were even able to fashion a film out of so little material and on such a tight schedule. Though the incidence hasn't been perfect all along, five pictures deep, the trajectory of the ongoing narrative mirrors, at the first and the last, how the instalments are approached in terms of both film-making and storytelling style. The progenitor explored the violence of the yakuza in the early post-war years as Japan rebuilt, and it's quite fitting that as both written and executed it would bear wild, chaotic energy that was a veritable shot in the arm for the genre. Granted the pacing of this one is filled with stops and starts due to the loose structure of its script and the big players are mostly kept to the sidelines for the majority of the runtime; I'll be damned that it follows in the same vein as Deadly Fight in Hiroshima thanks to some exceptional performances from its cast, all of whom deliver fantastic performances. As compelling for its performances as for its historical detail, Final Episode keeps the energy level high, its technical aspects strong and its cast thoroughly engaging right up until the last body falls and the Battles finally end, one age of the yakuza fades to be replaced by another.

FINAL EPISODE is, unsurprisingly, the last of Kinji Fukasaku's five-part yakuza film series that began with BATTLES WITHOUT HONOR AND HUMANITY years previously. This handles a more political storyline, lighter on the action and heavier on the talk, that nonetheless brings the story virtually up to date and continues to enchant with its depiction of a lawless world of honour, reputation, and death.

As with the other films in this series, FINAL EPISODE has plenty of energy to keep it moving through the slower spots. The yakuza may be older and more grizzled in this film, but they're none the wiser, and the low level thugs are still committing carnage on the streets. Bunta Sugawara's Hirono is finally released from prison and discovers a world very different from the one he knew previously. The production values remain high and the excellent soundtrack continues to complement the on-screen action perfectly.

This fabulous Yakuza saga scattered in five chapters since post war era until early seventies portrait an ultra-violence offering, despite the formulaic success it became a slight repetitive letting it somehow boring on successive and never-ending clashing over the opposite sides of the recently stablished Tensei organization as political party to cover up their criminal activities.

It starting in August 6th on annual march for atomic bomb event at Hiroshima, due the former Boss Hirono (Bunta Sugawara) was in jail, his successor Akira Kobayashi ought changing of the guard to younger Matsumura (Seizô Fukumoto) to dismay of the older members, it triggers a so awaited strife among Tensei to the extent of a near breakage.

Soon Hirono was release from prison moth-eaten by the pain by his brother death, thus it demanding a settlement aiming for maintain the peaceful on the business, however the former boss Akira Kobayashi tries an odd deal with Hirono to appease acrimony offering both for a retirement on behalf of a newest commanders, it wouldn't be so easy as he might think, the bloodshed will proceed.

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First watch: 2024 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.25.

I would have said "awful" but the other films were so great! It was such a disappointment after watching the others. At the end of the film there were too many loose ends, so much left behind unresolved with no closure for the main character or more importantly, the viewer. At this point in the series, I was having problems as well with everyone's inability to hold a gun straight. And why were they always falling down on the people they shot?

All I can say is that if this is based on the memoirs of a Yakuza boss, and these films held true to story... only then can I accept this "real" ending. Otherwise what a let down. Maybe I'm just sad it's over.

I finished the whole jingi series in 2 day and I'm rewatching the first movie and if I were to summarize this film it was basically an relativly peaceful ending to a man who lived in loyalty at the start and slowly started to get involved in a yakuza war with betral and a big physiological warfare.

Overall I absolutely loved this series and planning to watch more yakuza film and I would recommend it to anyone's who's interested.