Sympathy for the Underdog

More Kinji Fukasaku is never a bad thing, and Radiance is giving us a chance to watch his 1971 Sympathy for the Underdog. Released prior to his seminal Battles without Honour and Humanity films or the excellent Street Mobster, yakuza films were changing from the more romantic image of the samurai-yakuza to describing a more brutal and casually violent world. Which path would Sympathy for the Underdog take?

Released from prison after a ten-year stretch, Gunji (Koji Tsuruta) is a washed-up Yakuza, his boss dead and territory taken by Daitokai, a yakuza clan gone apparently straight and managing the local docks. Gunju though has a plan, and brings his gang back together, adding Kudo (Noboru Ando), a yakuza he had once tried to kill, who equally hates Oba (Asao Uchida) the Daitokai boss. Gunji's plan? With nothing on the mainland for them, they hit Naha in Okinawa and start to take over the territory, only for Daitokai to appear again.

Though technically in a series of Gambler films starring Koji Tsuruta, Sympathy for the Underdog is very much a Kinji Fukasaku film. True, the film is more on the romantic Samurai code Yakuza end of the spectrum in the main, nevertheless, Fukasaku’s fingerprints are all over the film, and you can see in it the move towards the more brutal, and brutalising reality of the Battles without Honour and Humanity series, and perhaps hitting its zenith with his remarkable Graveyard of Honour. Koji Tsuruta’s Gunji is a noble yakuza in the main, but that doesn't mean he’s necessarily a nice guy. In reality he is like Bunta Sugawara in the "Battles" films, in how he has his own ethical code. Where perhaps Sympathy for the Underdog is different in how that nobility is often carried over into most other yakuza and those that are bad never hit the depravity of those in some of Fukasaku’s later films. Revenge AND vengeance drives much of the film and most of the set-up is displayed in true, brief Fukasaku style, using the "still-image montage flashback" that is ever so effective (and you assume cost effective). He never lingers on the past, but uses it to emotionally drive the story. He gives us just enough of a glimpse into what has happened in the past to allow us to feel it as the characters themselves might. This again is classic Fukasaku, because he allows you to feel the emotional journey and that is so key to why this films are often so effective. Stylistically too he is on point. Violence, when it erupts, is sudden, vicious, bloody and chaotic, the handheld camera thrusting us into it the maelstrom where it is hard to know what is happening, where life and death are but a bullet or knife wound away. Anyone who knows his films will recognise the ploy immediately, and how well controlled it will be, and so efficacious.  

But as always with Fuksaku, like Shinya Tsukamoto, he is just as at home with silence and sensitivity. He is comfortable with stillness and emotions rippling under the surface. It is perhaps this ability to capture all aspects of his characters that elevates his work. A yakuza at rest is as thrilling, often more so, than a yakuza prepared for violence. As our protagonist meets a prostitute that is the spitting image of his ex-lover, their moments together are as enthralling as anything else we see. Yet it is really the dynamics between the men that matter most, especially Gunji and Kudo, who have an innate understanding of each other and their individual adherence to their code. Add to this duo Tomisaburo Wakayama as Yonabal, who adds heft initially as a villain but one that comes closer to them because they share a soul, one that respects risk, guts and the right kind of yakuza behaviour that is clearly starting to fray around the edges as big money looms on the horizon. It’s not guns, it’s not knives and blades, it’s the soul of these people that are respected.  

The scenes between the three protagonists, especially when Wakayama is present, are some of the best in the film. When Wakayama enters, ostensibly as a heavy to protect his idiot brother, he provides a real weight (honestly that’s not a pun) that until then is missing from the film in terms of adversity. After all, Tsuruta as Gunji with his calm demeanor, and Ando as Kudo being all quiet vengeful, we know none of the homegrown yakuza can stand up to them. They ooze class, Ando especially. So Wakayama coming into their arc lifts the story.

Similar to the latter Battles film, the American occupation also looms large, though here it is a bit different. Okinawa at first is first shown as being almost entirely Western. When the film first shows us the streets, alleyways and bars of Naha, we are shown Americans of all creeds and colours, men and women; American planes and boats; the Japanese are noticeably absent in their own city. In part this may be an aspect of social commentary, but Fukasaku also works it into the plot. A scene with an air force plane going overhead, well, you know what’s going to happen, but the tension that is built is a result of classy filmmaking. Also, the music that opens the film is jazzy, which continues and often merges into rock as we enter the clubs in Naha, but interestingly then as Gunji, Kudo and Yonabal come closer into each other’s orbits, this dissipates we find ourselves in the brothels listening to traditional Okinawa songs, those of immigrant workers and prostitutes that the mainlanders cannot understand. The film shifts, but again you feel the cultural aspects creeping in but this time telling us a different story.

Sympathy for the Underdog is not quite classic Fukasaku, though it's certainly never dull during the 95-minute runtime. Regardless it never quite hits the highs of some of his other work. That said many other directors would be desperate to make such a beautifully crafted yakuza movie. It’s a matter of Fukasaku’s skill at making this kind of film, yet you cannot help think that as a director he has a greater affinity for those stories that are a little rougher and dirtier and yet always, like Sympathy for the Underdog, very deeply humane. It’s a tough balance, one that Takeshi Kitano often manages, especially in Hana-Bi. Nevertheless, it’s a gloriously crafted movie, boasting excellent performances, with expectedly visceral moments and shows us Fukasaku on the cusp of truly great things.