Line #23 Film/TheYakuza


1	[[quoteright:267:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Yakuza_208.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:267:Top to bottom: Eiko, Kilmer, Ken]]
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4	''The Yakuza'' is a 1974 film directed by Creator/SydneyPollack. (Retired) detective Harry Kilmer (Creator/RobertMitchum) goes to Japan to help out an old friend, George Tanner (Creator/BrianKeith), who had been dealing with the {{yakuza}}. The {{yakuza}} had kidnapped his daughter and her boyfriend to [[AnOfferYouCantRefuse coerce Tanner into a business deal]].
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6	Harry and Tanner's friendship goes back to UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, when they served together as Marines in Japan. While in Japan, Harry had fallen in love with a local woman, Eiko, and helped save her sick daughter. Eiko's brother Ken was disgraced by his sister's relationship with a former enemy soldier and he disappeared into the yakuza underworld. However, since Ken owes a lifelong debt (called ''[[PillarsOfMoralCharacter giri]]'' in the movie) to Harry, he reluctantly joins them to help rescue Tanner's daughter.
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8	They successfully rescue the hostages, but in doing so they anger the yakuza and contracts on Ken and Harry's lives are issued. Harry refuses to abandon Ken and his family while their lives are in danger, defending them from yakuza attackers, but he eventually learns [[TheReveal how much pain his presence in their lives has caused them]]. Despite this, Ken and Harry overcome their differences, helped by Harry's openness to Japanese tradition.
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10	The film emphasizes Japanese tradition and honor among the yakuza, and remarkably has two {{yubitsume}} scenes.
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12	The film was written by Creator/PaulSchrader and his brother Leonard. Paul would notably go on to write ''Film/TaxiDriver''. Rewrites were also undertaken by Creator/RobertTowne who wrote ''Film/{{Chinatown}}''.
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14	If you went to this page hoping for a page describing the yakuza, sorry. [[{{Yakuza}} It's here]].
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16	! ''The Yakuza'' provides examples of:
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18	* BigBad: Tono, the yakuza boss who Tanner owes a debt to. It later becomes a BigBadDuumvirate after [[spoiler:Tanner]] has a FaceHeelTurn and joins him in going after Harry and Ken.
19	* BigBadDuumvirate: Tono and [[spoiler:Tanner]] are both out to kill Harry and Ken, and working together to do it.
20	* BornInTheWrongCentury: Ken, according to his brother.
21	* CampingACrapper: {{Subverted\|Trope}}; several Yakuza thugs follow Ken into the mens room of a nightclub. He's waiting for them behind the door, but they only want to talk.
22	* ChekhovsBoomerang: Hanako tells Dusty about {{Yubitsume}}, the yakuza custom of cutting one's finger. Later, we see Ken following this tradition and cutting his finger in front of Goro. [[spoiler:Then, Kilmer also cuts one of his fingers to apologize to Ken.]]
23	* ClothingDamage: Ken has a ShirtlessScene by the end of the FinalBattle.
24	* ConservationOfNinjutsu: Ken and Kilmer vs. yakuza goons
25	* CultureClash: Even if Kilmer knows Japan very well, he is still surprised by the sense of honour of yakuza.
26	* DarkAndTroubledPast: Implied. Not much about Kilmer's past is revealed prior to meeting Eiko, but given that he mentions he doesn't have any family aside from her and Hanako in a rather somber manner.
27	* DidNotGetTheGirl: Kilmer goes back to the US and gives Eiko's love up [[spoiler:because he has heard that she was Ken's wife]].
28	* DisposableWoman: [[spoiler:Hanako is killed by Tono's henchmen. Ken and Kilmer avenge her death.]]
29	* TheDoorSlamsYou:
30	* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler:Tanner betrays Kilmer. Kilmer repays him with several bullets.]]
31	* FamilyOfChoice: Kilmer clearly considers Eiko and Hanako his family. [[spoiler:It's deconstructed when it's revealed Ken was Eiko's husband, and Harry had unknowingly been carrying on an affair with her because she believed Ken had died in the war.]]
32	* FedoraOfAsskicking: The Yakuza man who holds Eiko at knifepoint. [[spoiler:It hides the spider tattoo on his forehead, revealing that he's Ken's nephew.]]
33	* FireForgedFriends: Subverted; [[spoiler:it's not until Kilmer's act of atonement that Ken can truly accept his friendship.]]
34	* AFriendInNeed:
35	** Kilmer decides to help his friend Tanner when he hears that his daughter was kidnapped.
36	** Even if he is not his friend, Ken decides to help Kilmer in his quest. Then Kilmer wants to help Ken when he is the target of the yakuza. Ken and Kilmer will become friends by the end of the movie.
37	* GunsAkimbo: Kilmer wields a Colt .45 with a .38 pistol [[spoiler:while storming Tanner's office]] or a double-barreled shotgun (for the FinalBattle).
38	* HardboiledDetective: Only Bogart could do better than Mitchum here.
39	* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:Dusty admits that he knew all along what Tanner was up to, and asks to make it up to Kilmer.]]
40	* HonorBeforeReason: Ken should not accept to help Kilmer, because it would put his own life in danger. Yet he accepts, because he thinks that he owes a debt to him (''giri'').
41	* IHaveYourWife: Tanner's daughter is kidnapped by the yakuza as leverage for a deal.
42	* ImprovisedWeapon: Ken knocks down several yakuza with a ''bicycle!''
43	* ItsPersonal: [[spoiler:After Hanako's death, revenge against Tono and Tanner becomes an absolute necessity for her adoptive father (Kilmer) and her biological father (Ken).]]
44	* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: Once he finally realizes the full situation, Kilmer leaves Eiko [[spoiler:and convinces Ken, her husband, to go back to her, because he loves them both and sincerely desires their happiness more than his own.]]
45	* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Ken. He's grim and even his own brother admits he's insufferable, but he's honorable and self-sacrificing to a fault.
46	* KatanasAreJustBetter: The yakuza use it prominently.
47	* KnightTemplarBigBrother: Ken refused to allow his sister Eiko to marry Harry because he was an American. [[spoiler:It's subverted when it's revealed Ken is actually her husband, and had returned home from the war to find his wife had been (unknowingly) having an affair with one of the people he had spent the past few years fighting.]]
48	* LoopholeAbuse: According to Yakuza tradition, Ken must kill Tono with a sword. However there's no such restraints on Kilmer, who can use firearms to hold off Tono's numerous bodyguards.
49	* LoveTriangle: [[spoiler:After TheReveal, we understand that Ken is Eiko's husband, so there is a love triangle between them and Kilmer.]]
50	* MeaningfulEcho: "Please accept [[{{fingore}} this token]] of my apology."
51	* MightyWhitey: Averted in that it's a large part of the film that Harry has to work to understand Japanese values and culture and needs Ken as a guide. And by the time the final battle rolls around, it's clearly [[ItsPersonal Ken's fight]] and Harry is his support.
52	* MightyWhiteyAndMellowYellow: Kilmer was a Marine MP and he protected Eiko, a Japanese woman in need. She fell in love with him.
53	* MrExposition: Oliver Wheat tells the backstories of Harry Kilmer, Ken and Eiko Tanaka.
54	* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Kilmer at TheReveal, and Ken when he [[spoiler:kills his nephew in retribution for Hanako's murder in the final battle.]]
55	* AnOfferYouCantRefuse: Tanner's daughter is kidnapped by the yakuza as leverage for a deal.
56	* OnlyICanKillHim: [[spoiler:Ken has to kill Tono according to the Yakuza code, while Harry demands the right to take care of Tanner himself.]]
57	* PillarsOfMoralCharacter: ''Giri'' is explicitly mentioned, though the others are important too.
58	* PublicBathhouseScene: Kilmer goes to a public bathhouse and a mook of Tono tries to kill him.
59	* RedemptionEqualsDeath: Just after his HeelFaceTurn, [[spoiler:Dusty]] is stabbed to death by the yakuza.
60	* RetiredBadass: Kilmer is a retired detective and Ken is a retired yakuza. They both show that they are still exceptional fighters.
61	* RetiredOutlaw: Ken Tanaka is not a yakuza any more. He is just a kendo teacher.
62	* TheReveal: Kilmer gets some new perspective on the film's backstory. [[spoiler: Eiko is not actually Ken's sister, but ''his wife''.]]
63	* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: Harry Kilmer first kills [[spoiler:George Tanner]] and several of his mooks. Then he joins Ken Tanaka to kill Tono and many, many mooks.
64	* RuthlessForeignGangsters: The Yakuza, when they're operating in the U.S. [[AvertedTrope Averted]] for most of the runtime, where they're in their own country.
65	* SacrificialLion: [[spoiler:Hanako and Dusty are killed by Tono's henchmen.]]
66	* SheIsAllGrownUp: Hanako was a little girl the last time Kilmer saw her. Now she is an attractive young woman.
67	* StarCrossedLovers: Eiko and Kilmer. They fell in love during the occupation, but when Eiko's brother Ken came back, she had to stop this relationship with an enemy soldier, because Ken could not stand it. [[spoiler:Actually, Ken was not her brother, but her husband, so there is a more obvious reason why she had to stop this relationship.]] Many years later, they are still in love, and Kilmer proposes again to marry Eiko, but she rejects his offer.
68	* TheStoic: Ken is called as The Man Who Never Smiles.
69	* TattooedCrook: All the yakuza.
70	* ThereWasADoor: Easy to do when the walls are made of paper.
71	* UngratefulBastard: [[spoiler:Harry and Ken put themselves at considerable risk to save Tanner's daughter, which Tanner rewards by selling them out to Tono at the first opportunity.]]
72	* {{Yakuza}}: Right there in the title.
73	* {{Yubitsume}}: Ken in atonement for killing his nephew, after he'd promised his brother not to harm him. [[spoiler:In a surprise twist Kilmer, on the verge of leaving Japan at the end of the movie, returns to Ken's place and cuts off his own finger, apologising for the pain he's caused Ken and asking that he forgive Eiko.]]
74	* WallOfWeapons: In Oliver Wheat's house.
75	* TheWatson: Dusty, who does not know Japanese culture and the other characters' backstory. He asks Oliver many questions.

Context Film / TheYakuza