The Yakuza is a well-crafted story finely-tuned to the silver screen. Written by Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver) and Robert Towne (Chinatown), the movie continually sucks you in. Deeper and deeper into its vision of cruel blackness and vengeful hatred. What starts off as a (relatively uninteresting) story of a WWII veteran (Robert Mitchum) who returns to Japan to retrieve his friend's kidnapped daughter turns into a fascinatingly complex study of honor and duty. With a terrifyingly tense climax. While some have said that the movie is about Japan, I see relatively little about Japan as a country. It is a gangster film at its core, and a great one at that.The story, the characters, and the themes it presents are some of the best aspects of this movie. Sydney Pollack's directing is also great, with phenomenal music and excellent cinematography, shot compositions, and camera movement. Casting and acting were also spot-on. The performances were realistic and subtle, electing to remain in the background of the incredible story instead of stealing the spotlight. While I disagreed with some of the editing choices, there were very few technical flaws in this movie. (On a side note, I did find it difficult to understand some of the thicker accents, but it wasn't too disorienting.) If you like gangster movies, I highly recommend this movie. (And if you have Netflix, you can watch it for free online, like I did. Unless you have a Mac, that is.)
IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073918/