Graveyard of Honor Rating: Release Date: 07 September, 2004 Retail Price: $29.95 OUR Price: $26.99 You SAVE: $2.96! Cast: Tetsuya Watari

Graveyard of Honor Reviews

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Graveyard of Dopeness...
Yes. This yakuza masterpiece is an eclectic mix of violence, honor, blood and more violence. It's based on the events surrounding real-life bad-ass Rikio Ishikawa. He will not let anything get in his way, regardless if he has a plan. Well, he has a plan, and ultimately revolves around one thing...MAYHEM. You tell this cat not to do something, and that's what he does. "Hey Rikio, it's against the code to attack our boss" "Really? I guess i gotta shank him in the neck with a kitana blade." "Hey Rikio, stay out of Shinjiku district or we'll kill you." "OK, I'll be there, let's have drinks and a knife fight." He is without much logic and full of wanton abandon.
the cinematography is trippy, moving from handheld camera angles and then bouncing to sepia flashbacks (what's with Japan and sepia anyway?). the director did a massive job capturing Ishikawa's chaotic personality. In fact, the dude who plays our "protagonist" is the same guy who starred in the god-awful "Tokyo Drifter". Well, I guess this flick is his twisted redemption.
I'd have given the film 5 stars, but quite frankly I chipped away at the score because of a rape scene. Couldn't they imply rape instead of showing it? Then again, that's a philosophical question that needn't be argued here...anyways, this flick is good and worth your cash, especially if you like vicious gangster films from the land of the rising sun.

Death of Honor
I have not yet seen this DVD version of the film, but I assume that this Home Vision Entertainment DVD has a much better picture quality - keeping in mind that this film is from the 70s. It is a very entertaining and stylish yakuza film from famous Japanese director Kinji Fukasaku. Fukasaku was made famous because of his great yakuza films including this film and the "Battles without Honor" (aka Yakuza Papers) series. This is highly recommended to anyone who likes gangster films.

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