北野武とヤクザ映画の文法Takeshi Kitano and the Grammar of the Yakuza Film

In this article, we will explore how Takeshi Kitano, who has also made a name for himself as a film director, fundamentally changed the conventions of traditional Japanese cinema. To do so, we will first unravel the history of yakuza films and their evolution.

In the early 1980s, Japan experienced a major boom in the comedy scene known as the "manzai boom." Riding this wave, Kitano began his career as part of the duo "Two Beat," quickly rising to the top of the comedy world.

Having reached the top of the comedy world in no time, Kitano also moved into acting in the 1980s. He gained particular recognition for his role in Nagisa Oshima's Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), where he starred alongside Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Bowie.

Then, in 1989, Kinji Fukasaku—who was initially set to direct Violent Cop—stepped down due to scheduling conflicts. Seeing Kitano’s popularity and unique sense of creativity, Shochiku, the film’s distributor, offered him the chance to direct. This marked the beginning of his career as a filmmaker.

Following his directorial debut, Kitano gained international recognition with films such as Sonatine (1993), which was well received at the Cannes Film Festival, and HANA-BI (1997), which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. These works firmly established his reputation as a director.

The phenomenon of artists from other industries transitioning into film was particularly prominent in Japan around the 1990s. Preceding Kitano, there were pioneers such as Kinji Fukasaku, who started as a stage actor before becoming a director in the 1970s, and Nobuhiko Obayashi, a former commercial director who had a significant influence on Japanese cinema in the 1980s.

Kitano rode this new current into directing, and as a multi-talented creator he brought into film the reactive spirit with which he had turned the phenomena of his time into comedy. This is what sets him far apart from other directors. In fact, when Kitano first started directing, he openly admitted that he had watched very few films before that point.

Let’s first examine his yakuza films. This characteristic extends beyond just yakuza films, but the typical trait of Kitano’s works is that the protagonist is never glorified, and there is a common pattern: he dies in the end.

For crime films, we have Violent Cop (1989, その男、凶暴につき) and HANA-BI (1998). In the yakuza genre, there are Sonatine (1993), Brother (2001), and the Outrage series (2010–2017).

Looking at Kitano’s works alone, this is hard to grasp, but it stands against the traditional conventions of Japanese yakuza films, where protagonists were often glorified and deified as heroes of their time.

The golden age of yakuza films in Japan was relatively short-lived, spanning only about a decade from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s. This boom was largely driven by a single company: Toei.

Toei’s yakuza films deliberately omitted detailed depictions of yakuza society, instead focusing on crafting heroic figures who embodied a rebellious spirit. Some of the most iconic actors who personified these heroic yakuza were Ken Takakura, Koji Tsuruta, and Bunta Sugawara.

In terms of timeline, Koji Tsuruta led the genre in the mid-1960s, followed by Ken Takakura from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, and Bunta Sugawara in the early 1970s. While their films are rarely available with subtitles, here are some key works for reference:

• Koji Tsuruta starred in the Jinsei Gekijo: Hishakaku series (人生劇場　飛車角), which began in 1963.
• Ken Takakura took over with Nihon Kyokakuden (1964, 日本侠客伝) and the Showa Zankyo-den series (1965, 昭和残侠伝), which ran until 1972. Nihon Kyokakuden had 11 films (until 1971), while Showa Zankyo-den had nine, both of which enjoyed massive popularity.
• In 1973, as the popularity of Takakura’s films declined, Kinji Fukasaku’s Battles Without Honor and Humanity(1973–1974, 仁義なき戦い) was released, starring Bunta Sugawara.

By the time Battles Without Honor and Humanity came out, it was no longer possible to glorify a single actor as the sole heroic figure. This shift was reflected in the film’s unique narrative structure, which, while having a central protagonist, also featured numerous prominent characters vying for power. Once this series concluded, audience interest in yakuza films rapidly waned, and Toei’s dominance in the genre faded.

Why, then, did yakuza films enjoy popularity for only about a decade before sharply declining? A key factor lies in the socio-political climate of the time: the rise of student protests.

In a way, the yakuza film boom was deeply intertwined with the radical energy of Japan’s late-1960s student movements, particularly the protests against the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty (安保闘争). For young people then, the struggle against an absolute power that could not easily be toppled offered no view of what lay ahead.

Toei drew on a period in which yakuza society had come to pursue profit over justice, and created in Ken Takakura a deified, classical yakuza. Young people were swept up, and the films exploded in popularity.

In other words, when the student movements ended, the deified yakuza film was no longer needed. After the student movements of 1968, including those at the University of Tokyo, the 1970 campaign against the new Japan-U.S. Security Treaty also ended in failure. Young people were crushed, and the popularity of yakuza films ended with them.

Understanding this context highlights the significance of Takeshi Kitano’s emergence. He appeared at a time when yakuza films had entered a long period of stagnation. Having never watched earlier films, Kitano could step without hesitation into raw cinematic expression, using his skill at reading the times rather than any regard for the grammar and context of film history. And that matched the mood of the new era’s audience perfectly.

The pattern in Kitano’s films, where the protagonist dies at the end, is an answer to the past, sent from a society after the 1990s in which deifying a single person no longer held. The arrival of a world without a protagonist. In Kitano’s work, I feel a turning point in an age when something was torn apart.