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Review: “A Family” Shows the Yakuza Aren’t so Glorious Anymore

Now on Netflix, Japanese film “A Family” offers a refreshingly realistic look at the yakuza’s waning status.

By Anthony Kao , 28 Jun 21 07:27 GMT

Today, Japan’s yakuza organized crime groups are in decline . Membership has plummeted to historic lows, and most remaining yakuza are over 50 years old . While yakuza narratives have historically played a significant role in Japanese entertainment , Japan’s cinematic industry has lagged in depicting these gangsters’ new, downtrodden reality—until now. 

Recently released on Netflix, the 2021 Japanese movie A Family (also known as Yakuza and the Family ) begins as a stereotypical yakuza blockbuster—with themes of violence, honor, and revenge. However, it eventually morphs into a surprisingly realistic portrayal of how the yakuza have shriveled in the face of new anti-gangster laws passed in the 2010’s . In this sense, A Family brings a breath of fresh air. Unlike most other yakuza films of the past decade, it doesn’t just cater to genre fans—it also helps broader audiences examine the complex realities of contemporary Japanese society, though deficient character development prevents the film from reaching its full potential.  

Boy Joins Gang

A Family begins in 1999, with a blonde-haired teenager named Kenji Yamamoto (Go Ayano) stumbling into his father’s funeral. We learn that Kenji’s father died of a drug overdose; resolving to never become like his old man, Kenji and two of his friends steal drugs from a street dealer and throw them into the ocean. This catches the attention of a local yakuza syndicate run by the middle-aged Hiroshi Shibasaki (Hiroshi Tachi)—who recruits Kenji and becomes his new father figure. 

The film then jumps to 2006. By this time, Kenji has become a trusted acolyte in Shibasaki’s organization, and is trying to initiate a romance with a bar hostess named Yuka. Alas, a classic yakuza territorial dispute breaks out; motivated by a combination of loyalty, honor, and vengeance, Kenji gets embroiled in a violent incident that lands him a 14 year stint in prison.

Fast forward again to the film’s final section. It’s 2019, and Kenji has returned from prison. He tries reconnecting with Shibasaki, Yuka, and his old gang mates—but finds that the world has changed in the wake of anti- yakuza measures that were passed during his incarceration. Amidst this new reality, Kenji must rediscover meaning and belonging for his life. 

A Shaky Start 

The first two parts of A Family aren’t particularly remarkable, though dedicated gangster movie fans may still find enough to satisfy themselves. While the cinematography is competent, and even distinctive in a few moments (ex. vertically panning drone shots across bleak industrial cityscapes), the narrative—of young guy joins gang, gang gets into turf wars, turf wars lead to bloodshed—is predictable. 

Character relationships within these two initial portions also feel somewhat choppy. Despite saying he’ll be Kenji’s “father figure,” Shibasaki doesn’t demonstrate any meaningful bond with Kenji beyond cursory conversations in the yakuza office or on car rides. Kenji’s romance with Yuka feels even more stilted. Yuka at first rejects Kenji’s awkward advances, but eventually gives in and becomes a figure of comfort for Kenji during a tragic moment. It’s never apparent why she warms up to him though, though the fact that she does proves convenient for A Family ’s third act.  

Fighting Before Learning

This last act is where A Family becomes worth paying attention to. 

Starting in the early 2010’s , Japan’s local governments began passing yakuza exclusion ordinances that prohibited regular citizens from doing business or otherwise engaging with the yakuza . These laws severely curtailed the yakuza ’s commercial operations and personal lives. Yakuza gangsters could no longer acquire cell phones, rent property, open bank accounts, or even get pizzas deliveries, without attracting official sanction. 

More significantly, these regulations have solidified public sentiment against the yakuza . Rather than romantic anti-heroes of cinematic lore, the yakuza have become outcasts, ostracized by not only businesses but also family members unwilling to risk guilt by association. Even those who quit the yakuza are still subject to the exclusion ordinances for five years thereafter, making social reintegration difficult. With all these restrictions, it’s no wonder the yakuza aren’t getting any new recruits—and dying out at an even faster pace than Japan’s already super-aged society.  

A Family ’s third act depicts the effects of these anti- yakuza laws with greater detail than any major Japanese movie thus far. 

When Kenji returns from prison in 2019, someone else has to buy a cell phone for him, and his previous status within the yakuza is for nought. Shibasaki’s top lieutenants are now destitute; with better income sources no longer available, they’ve become drug mules and illegal fishermen in order to make ends meet. One of Kenji’s closest friends has left the yakuza , and isn’t faring much better. Because of rampant discrimination against former gangsters, that friend can only find work at a toxic disposal site; he fears that colleagues’ errant social media usage may expose his past, and destroy the fragile new family life he’s been able to build.

This last act also shows how, in the wake of these ordinances, crime has simply morphed into other forms. A Family shows how Tsubasa, a young boy that Kenji doted on back in 2006, grows up to be a digitally savvy hangure (roughly translated as “gray zone misfit”) in 2019. In real life, as the yakuza ’s presence shrivels, this new generation of hangure have filled the void . This has led some analysts to question whether the exclusion ordinances are actually making Japan safer. 

Bygone Glory

As the first major, internationally streamable movie to address the yakuza ’s waning influence, A Family is a valuable addition to discourse around Japanese organized crime. While 2020 indie film Under the Open Sky also broaches this reality, it is far less accessible and lacks international distribution. Otherwise, Japanese cinema is still stuck with a surfeit of mediocre yakuza franchise sequels that don’t advance anybody’s social consciousness. 

Thus, it’s a missed opportunity that A Family doesn’t have better character development. While factual and novel in its portrayal of anti- yakuza ostracism, the film lacks an emotional punch, and falls short of its title’s ostensible promise to discuss the nature of “family.” By fleshing out Kenji’s relationships more, A Family could’ve made audiences better empathize with his reintegration plight, and more deeply examine whether Japan’s approach to yakuza eradication needs reform. 

It will be up to other films to advance that conversation—but at least A Family has opened the door.

A Family (Japanese: ヤクザと家族 The Family; alternate English title: Yakuza and the Family) —Japan. Dialog in Japanese. Directed by Michihito Fujii. First released January 29, 2021 in Japan. Running time 2hr 16min. Starring Go Ayano, Hiroshi Tachi, Machiko Ono. 

A Family is available for streaming on Netflix worldwide.

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘A Family’ on Netflix, Tracking A Yakuza Gangster’s Search For Self-Fulfillment

Where to stream:.

11 Best New Movies on Netflix: June 2024's Freshest Films to Watch

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A Family (Netflix), from writer and director Michihito Fujii, is a subdued blend of yakuza genre filmmaking and familial drama, exploring the bonds of companionship for those living outside of societal norms — orphaned gangsters, crime bosses in their insulated lairs, and red light district workers who just want something more, for something in life to matter.

A FAMILY : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: 1999. Late to his father’s funeral, Kenji Yamamoto (Go Ayano) wears his bleach blonde mop with apathy and bloody knuckles with misplaced bravado. Aimless, and with no family left, Kenji commits penny ante crime on the streets of industrial Aichi prefecture, and eventually drifts into the orbit of local yakuza boss Shibazaki (Hiroshi Tachi), a gallant, old-school gangster with the usual coterie of flunkies in garish suits. Shibazaki takes “Lil Ken” under his wing, and before long it’s 2005, and the former street punk has emerged as a trusted lieutenant. Kenji is devoted to the paternal Shibazaki, and his fellow yakuza are his de facto family. The gangster life has given him purpose, but there’s still torment inside his soul.

Shibazaki’s gang has a part of the graft in town, and a rival yakuza group controls another. It’s the usual chest-thumping and territorial quarrelling, with the law, led by Osako (Ryo Iwamatsu), as grudging intermediary. The cops and the city want the yakuza elements gone, and a burgeoning economy is squeezing their traditional means of generating income. Turf battles and tough talk lead to an attempt on Shibazaki’s life, a transgression Kenji cannot abide by, and he takes the fall for the murder of a rival henchman, even as he’d finally found a woman who’d tolerate and push back against his brusque nature. Yuka (Machiko Ono) is left only to watch a news report about Kenji’s arrest.

Flash forward 15 years. Kenji did his bit and kept his mouth shut, but he’s back on the outside to discover a landscape wholly changed. The boss is a shell, dying of cancer, and the yakuza are dying off, too. “The laws around cell phone contracts make buying a phone a pain for yakuza,” an underling tells Kenji. The clubs they once ran are closed; society has moved on. And so has Yuka, though she’s ashamed to admit she still carries a torch for her mobster true love. Kenji, now an outcast, wanders the streets as a gangster without a home, without criminal means, and worse, without his adopted family. “I thought about dissolving it,” his boss, his surrogate father, tells Kenji from his hospital bed. “But for the guys who can only live as yakuza, who would be willing to save them? In the end, duty and honor can’t beat money.”

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? As yakuza genre films go, Takeshi Kitano’s Outrage trilogy, beginning with the first film in 2010, is fascinating in its manner of subverting the standards of the style while at the same time elevating the formative parts. The 2017 film Lost Girls & Love Hotels , meanwhile, offered a different take on companionship amongst people shut out by Japanese society, not only yakuza gangsters but expatriates and unmarried professional women.

Performance Worth Watching: Go Ayano (Rage) carries A Family wonderfully, effectively transporting Kenji’s quaking internal self from late-1990’s street punk through 2000’s suited up Yakuza soldier and onward to 2015, when he’s the last gangster standing in a world that’s moved on from his ilk. Ayano adopts a deceptive hangdog stance for Kenji, with only the occasional brush of a grin across his standard mask of dejected indifference. But we see his sense of honor, and feel it when it’s trampled on.

Memorable Dialogue: Osako, the Organized Crime Bureau detective who is a deft, cynical player of both sides, tells the fatherly boss Shibazaki how it is, and how it’s going to be. “It is no longer just the role of the police and the law to punish the Yakuza. The entire world will exterminate you.”

Sex and Skin: The Yakuza are washing in a bath house, their irezumi tattooing on full display in this private place, away from society, among their criminal family.

Our Take: “How do the yakuza live? Why do they wear sunglasses at night? Call each other ‘boss’ and ‘brother’ like that? I never thought I’d meet the real thing.” Kenji likes Yuka because she freely chides his self-serious nature, and the trappings of gangsterdom. She isn’t intimidated, and instead offers him what he’s always craved: true kindness, and a regular-type life. Sure, Kenji found a father of sorts in the form of Shibazaki, but even the boss understands that the yakuza gang’s familial structure is largely a falsehood, a lie constructed to justify the criminal’s place in the social hierarchy. And when Kenji discovers that contemporary society has moved on from organized crime, it’s the purity and promise Yuka represents that Kenji is most ashamed of staining. In its last section, as the defrocked gangster walks the streets as a pariah, the notes A Family has been playing since the beginning become the most resonant.

Michihito Fujii’s film might heap on the sentiment, but it also doesn’t shy away from the jarring violence that’s a yakuza genre hallmark. Brandished baseball bats and knives plunged into stomachs accompany the criminal element as much as their ever-present cigarettes and rings of acrid smoke. Equating these two sides — a life of crime versus everyday existence — Fujii uses the landscape of industrial Japan as a binding agent, framing smokestacks as forlorn towers to progress, and employs tons of natural light to lend internal spaces a sense of confinement longing to be free. The bonds of family, formed and broken and formed again, are conveyed here with a wonderful feel for how sacred and fragile those bonds truly are.

Our Call: STREAM IT. While A Family is steeped in yakuza genre machismo, Michihito Fujii’s film is really a meditation on the concept of family as a basic human need.

Should you stream or skip Michihito Fujii's #AFamily on @netflix ? #SIOSI — Decider (@decider) June 20, 2021

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges

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Home » Endings Explained

A Family ending explained – will Kenji keep his honor?

This article discusses the ending of the Netflix film A Family, so this will contain major spoilers. Netflix’s  A Family, originally titled Yakuza and the Family , was written and directed by Michihito Fujii ( The Brightest Roof in the Universe).  Ready Steady Cut film critic, M.N. Miller, called Fujii’s film “A killer gangster epic!”

Netflix’s  A Family ending explained.

Fujii’s film is much more than a crime thriller. It takes place for over twenty years. Each person’s choice is like the waters that flow over and shape rocks in a stream for decades and affect generations. By the film’s bloody conclusion, Kenji (Go Ayano) has decided to put an end to it all. He doesn’t want to see the little boy, Tsubasa (Hayato Isomura), who he had doted on as a small child, make the same mistake he did by avenging his father.

So, the love of his life, Yuka (Machiko Ono), leaves him. She also takes the daughter he just found out about and was conceived the day before he went to prison. He now takes matters into his own hands. Kenji beats Tsubasa to the restaurant where the head of organized crime, Detective Osako (Ryo Iwamatsu), tells him where the killers are. He beats them to death with a baseball bat, ending the Yakuza cycle of violence before it consumes Tsubasa from having a life of his own.

Kenji, bloodied, sitting on a dock overlooking the water, is about to leave when someone violently stabs him with a sharp katana. Kenji is done for, but we still don’t see the man’s face until it is finally revealed; it’s Hosono ( Yakuza Apocolypse’s Hayato Ichihara). Why did he kill his friend? Because he spent five years after leaving the Yakuza struggling, then he built himself a normal life. What these men could never have and now regret, deeply. When Kenji came back, someone took a picture of them and put it on social media to see with a headline about the former gangsters are now working stiffs. This caused great shame for Hosono’s wife. She leaves him and takes his child with her.

What Happens Next

Tsubasa leaves flowers on the dock, mourning the only father figure he has ever known. When a young woman comes up and asks him if he knew her father. Tsubasa is taken back by this, and it dawns on him who she is. He finally realizes what Kenji did. He stopped the cycle of endless violence. This now only allowed him to lead a Yakuza-free life but Kenji’s daughter as well.

Article by Marc Miller

Marc Miller (also known as M.N. Miller) joined Ready Steady Cut in April 2018 as a Film and TV Critic, publishing over 1,600 articles on the website. Since a young age, Marc dreamed of becoming a legitimate critic and having that famous “Rotten Tomato” approved status – in 2023, he achieved that status.

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A Family (2020) Review

“A Family” Theatrical Poster

AKA: Yakuza and the Family Director: Michihito Fujii Cast: Go Ayano, Hiroshi Tachi, Machiko Ono, Yukiya Kitamura, Hayato Ichihara, Hayato Isomura, Shun Sugata, Suon Kan, Ryutaro Ninomiya, Taro Suruga Running Time: 135 min.

By Henry McKeand

“Lately, I’m getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over.”

It’s been nearly twenty-five years since Tony Soprano, perhaps America’s last real mafia icon, said these words in the pilot episode of The Sopranos. For at least three decades, crime films (or at least their protagonists) have bemoaned the fact that being a mobster isn’t what it used to be, but that hasn’t done anything to control audiences’ appetite for underworld stories. This puts crime filmmakers in a tough position: they can either look back to the mid-20 th -century, when organized crime was at the height of its powers, or try to tell a topical crime story that reckons with the decline of traditional gangster subcultures.

Japan cinema has been dealing with this dilemma for years. Cultural changes and legal crackdowns have led to decreasing numbers of Japanese Yakuza, who have been staples of cinematic gangsterdom since the 70s. Some films, such as Takeshi Kitano’s Outrage trilogy, have tackled this steady fall. Sure, Kitano served up the requisite bloodshed and backstabbing, but his Yakuza characters, with their severed pinkies and feudal mindsets, seemed out of place in the modern world, their ceaseless violence the death throes of a shrinking caste.  

If Kitano was subtly commenting on these changes, Michihito Fujii faces them head-on with A Family , his underseen 2020 film about Yakuza clashing with a new Japan that wants nothing to do with them. It presents a world where Yakuza are rendered weak and desperate in the 21 st century, and the film’s most devastating scenes center on the mental anguish that comes when someone’s way of life disappears.

At over two hours, it tells an epic story spanning twenty years in a Yakuza family. A young man named Kenji (Go Ayano) lives an aimless life of petty crime until he meets Shibasaki (Hiroshi Tachi), a Yakuza boss with an old-school moral code. As he goes deeper into the Yakuza lifestyle, Kenji begins to look at Shibasaki as a father figure. Things are good for a while, especially when he forms a connection with a student and part-time hostess named Yukiko (Machiko Ono), but dangerous rivals and a rapidly changing world threaten to tear everything apart.  

The first hour tells a story you’ve seen before. Kenji rises through the ranks, finds purpose in his criminal family, and meets a woman who shows him what a “normal” life could be. This more formulaic half won’t be a problem for anyone jonesing for a good modern Yakuza drama. It’s well-shot and confidently directed, and the “period piece” segments, taking place in 1999 and 2005, are stylish and effective without relying on nostalgic imagery. The performances are all fantastic, with Hiroshi Tachi’s turn as the Yakuza patriarch especially impressive. Most importantly, the gangster politics are interesting, and everything comes to a satisfying mid-point showdown.

The film deviates from genre expectations when the plot jumps forward to 2019. With time, the tight-knit brotherhood of Yakuza has become a glorified street gang. To make ends meet, they resort to petty schemes and risky narcotics deals. There are no grand shootouts or standoffs now, and there’s a mournful quality to every scene. Genre fans may be disappointed at the lack of fireworks, but this is where Fujii mines the film’s true pathos.  

For better or worse, A Family has an almost unprecedented focus on the sad realities of modern Yakuza life. It’s especially interested in what it means to be ex-Yakuza in an unaccepting society. In the film’s world, finding jobs and supporting a family with the stigma of being a former Yakuza is a painful and often humiliating experience. Because of this, some characters end up clinging onto their Yakuza identities even as it destroys them. To them, it’s the only way that they can be treated with respect or humanity.  

It’s an interesting subject to explore, but Fujii comes dangerously close to steering into “message movie” territory. Scene after scene, characters cry and mourn the lives they once knew as the soundtrack swells. It begins to feel a little too emotionally manipulative, even in undeniably powerful scenes of aging Yakuza longing for acceptance.

In the world of A Family , the Yakuza are underdogs merely trying to hold onto centuries-old values of brotherhood and honor, and the main characters are shown mostly well-intentioned. Tachi’s gentle crime boss character is treated by both the characters and the script as a kind old man who simply wants the best for his family.  

In some ways, this is a strongpoint of the film. From Fukasaku to Miike, many classic Japanese crime films have pointed out moral rot and hypocrisy in the would-be-Samurai codes of the Yakuza, but Fujii more or less takes his characters at face value. The best crime stories get you to empathize with its outlaws, and simple moral condemnation is rarely interesting. Still, it’s hard not to wonder what the film could be if it did more to acknowledge that even the halcyon days of the Yakuza were full of violence and exploitation.   This could have added moral nuance to characters that here read as pitiful victims of changing times.  

Even with its sometimes overly-sentimental view of its gangster protagonists, A Family presents a fresh look its subject matter. Fujii proves in early scenes that he can deliver down-and-dirty crime thrills, but the eventual shift to broader themes of forgiveness and reformation is refreshing and ultimately worthwhile.  

Henry McKeand’s Rating: 7/10

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TJFF Review: Yakuza Film 'A Family' Shows the Fragility of a Gangster's Paradise

Directed by Michihito Fujii

Starring Go Ayano, Hiroshi Tachi, Machiko Ono, Yukiya Kitamura, Hayato Ichihara

BY Rachel Ho Published Jun 8, 2021

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‘A Family’: This sentimental ode to yakuza life ignores reality

In “A Family,” director Michihito Fujii’s original script combines a yakuza actioner with a family drama. This is not the oil-and-water mix it might seem to be — after all, the “Godfather” films are also about family, despite the high body counts.

Is that the case with “A Family,” though? Fujii made his critical and commercial breakthrough in 2019 with “The Journalist,” an award-winning hit that was daring in its critique of current Japanese politics. A manipulative hack he is not.

In his latest, Fujii has delivered an homage to the classic yakuza films of the 1960s, when noble outlaws played by Ken Takakura and Koji Tsuruta lived in fealty to the gang code of jingi (“honor and humanity”), meaning they were ready and willing to sacrifice themselves for their “family.”

But that code, as Kinji Fukasaku revealed in his seminal five-part “Battles Without Honor and Humanity” series (1973-74), is a sham in real gang life, where self-interest rules and hoodlums are in it for the cold hard cash. Evidently, Fujii never got the memo.

“A Family” covers two decades in the life of Kenji Yamamoto (Go Ayano), whom we first meet in 1999 as a golden-haired teenage punk. Two-fisted and fearless, Kenji, or “Kenbo,” attracts the attention of Hiroshi Shibasaki (Hiroshi Tachi), the avuncular boss of the Shibasaki-gumi gang. When they first meet, Kenji is so rude to Hiroshi that his lieutenants are more inclined to whack him than welcome him, but the orphaned troublemaker is eventually won over by Hiroshi’s saintly patience and kindness, as well as support in a gang dust-up that nearly kills him.

Once a member of Shibasaki’s gang, Kenji becomes embroiled in a territorial dispute with the rival Kyoyo-kai, while falling for Yuka Kudo (Machiko Ono), a pure-hearted club hostess who pushes back against his brutishness and wins his respect. Kenji also befriends Aiko Kimura (Shinobu Terajima), a down-to-earth gangster widow, and her cute son, Tsubasa (Hayato Isomura).

In 2019, Kenji returns from a stretch in prison to his old Tokyo stomping grounds and finds everything changed, from his gang and his beloved boss, both sadly diminished, to his relationship with Yuka, who now works at City Hall and is a mother. Meanwhile, Tsubasa has grown into a millennial version of a young, arrogant Kenji.

The film’s mawkish laments for the passing of old-school gangsterdom, killed off by stringent anti-gang laws, are frankly ludicrous. For all their romantic celebrations of yakuza virtue, the classic films typically viewed the criminal life as one to avoid or escape, not celebrate.

And both Fukasaku’s and Coppola’s masterpieces had little use for treacle about underworld family values: Their heroes were hard-boiled types, physically and mentally fighting to survive. “A Family,” on the other hand, tries its darndest to extract sighs and sobs with scenes of blubbering thugs. I don’t remember Michael Corleone shedding many tears for Fredo, whose ending had pathos, not faintly ridiculous bathos.

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A Family Reviews

A Family delivers some impactful moments as it follows Kenji through the world of organized crime, and his struggle to deal with society’s approach to handling it.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jan 16, 2023

A killer gangster epic!

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Oct 9, 2022

The film's mawkish laments for the passing of old-school gangsterdom, killed off by stringent anti-gang laws, are frankly ludicrous.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 5, 2022

Fujii's composition is also rich in shots with more steady camerawork. In some cases, Fujii resorts to such static and dynamic moments to spice up his composition with some more artfully crafted shot-compositions...

Full Review | Dec 23, 2021

As the first major, internationally streamable movie to address the yakuza's waning influence, A Family is a valuable addition to discourse around Japanese organized crime.

Full Review | Jun 28, 2021

Puts the "sag" back in "saga"...soapy, melodramatic Japanese mob movie

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 22, 2021

While A Family is steeped in yakuza genre machismo, Michihito Fujii's film is really a meditation on the concept of family as a basic human need.

Full Review | Jun 21, 2021

A Family Movie Review: Fujii and Ayano come together to create an intensely brilliant film

Rating: ( 3.5 / 5).

Michihito Fujii’s Japanese crime drama is long and intense. The psychological intensity of many of its finest moments takes you back to The Godfather . It is safe to surmise that the latter made an impression on the director at some stage in his life.

It is 1999 and 19-year-old Kenji Yamamoto finds himself at the centre of a turf war between two opposing crime syndicate groups of the Yakuza. The recent loss of his father doesn’t stop the aimless teenager from seeking out trouble. The senior Yamamoto used to be a highly respected figure, and the surname is given due deference in most circles. A chance encounter at a local restaurant with an infamous crime boss by the name of Hiroshi Shibazaki is to change his life as he knows it. Kenji saves Shibazaki’s life when the latter and his entourage are ambushed by a rival group. The teenager receives an offer to join their business, but he flatly refuses. Days after saving Shibazaki’s life, Kenji finds himself in more strife as he steals drugs and money from a dealer on the street. Unbeknownst to him, the man he stole from works for the same group that barged into the restaurant the other night. Kenji splits the money with his two scooter-riding friends and disposes of the narcotics. The trio is picked up and tortured, but as soon as they realise the boy knows Shibazaki, they let them go. Kenji is taken in by Shibazaki and is formally initiated into the Shibazaki-gumi, Shouou-kai.

Director – Michihito Fujii

Cast – Go Ayano, Hiroshi Tachi, Machiko Ono, Yukiya Kitamura, Hayato Ichihara, Hayato Isomura

Streaming On – Netflix

Shibazaki is an old-fashioned Yakuza. He lives by the code of honour, loyalty and sacrifice. Under his leadership, the group (akin to a family with strong ties) is not permitted to deal in drugs and other vices. This is diametrically opposite to his younger and more hot-headed enemies. Cut to 2005, and the once-rebellious and directionless Kenji has transformed into one of the most trusted lieutenants of the Shibazaki-gumi. A personal favourite of Shibazaki, he is referred to fondly as Lil Ken. All is relatively well until a hit is ordered on his boss, and a close aide dies in the assassination attempt. Lil Ken is beside himself. Against the old man’s orders, he assassinates the rival group’s lieutenant, and is sent to prison.

The first half of the film is a bit predictable but effective, no doubt. Its pacing, dark imagery, and violence are all on point. The audience is provided with a deep dive into the Japanese underworld and the time-honoured traditions by which a prominent Yakuza family lives. But it is the second half that makes A Family truly memorable. The shift in the times is captured so melancholically by Fujii. After a prison sentence of fourteen years, Lil Ken is now thirty-nine. Though he is welcomed with open arms by the family, he soon finds out his father-figure boss is dying of cancer. The woman he once loved has vanished. The Yakuza is no longer what it used to be; so much so that members of the Shibazaki-gumi have resorted to making money from narcotics behind their boss’s back. This stage of the film is all about Kenji’s redemption. Shibazaki’s prophetic words to his protégé reverberate as he tells his ward to leave the Yakuza. “You still have time to do it over.” But that’s the thing about the mafia. It’s never ever a clean slate, even once you exit. Chances of leading a regular existence are next to nil. Old friends and lovers treat you as persona non grata, and honest work is hard to come by.

This melancholia Kenji feels - his best days snuffed out in prison - we feel too. And what accentuates the aforementioned mood is a supremely powerful classical score. The montages of the sea and the sky as he roams the streets for answers are quite breathtaking too. The most poignant part of the film involves a long voicemail Kenji sends to Yuka, doubling as a voiceover across scenes. The ‘what if’ and ‘all that might have been’ questions are so intense and sad that they brought a tear to my eye. What hits you the hardest is when he says, “I’m sorry for everything. It’s my fault all this happened. Even though it was brief, I was so happy to be able to live...even if it was just for a short time. I wanted to live a normal life. I wanted to work hard and become a proper human being.”

In Go Ayano’s Kenji Yamamoto we see the same human frailties as those of Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone. Deeply violent, dangerous and ruthless he may be, but his need for redemption is even greater. And that’s why his antiheroic character is one worth investing in and rooting for, even.

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Review: ‘A Family’ on Netflix

A family is a hard-hitting if familiar yakuza flick. director michihito fujii’s 2-hour gangster epic spans decades and shows the impacts of a life of crime in changing times, and the emotional toll the lifestyle takes. while the story might not break any entirely new ground, the emotional performances and exquisite cinematography make the piece a standout. a tense and dramatic take on the gangster genre, a family  explores the meaning of family in changing times..

Image courtesy of Netflix

Kenji Yamamoto, a delinquent teenager finds himself adrift after the death of his father. In a chance encounter, Kenji finds himself saving the life of a high-ranking Yakuza boss, Hiroshi Shibasaki, who offers Kenji a place in his crime syndicate the next morning. Immediately indignant to the offer, Kenji later finds his erratic actions have landed him in hot water with a rival gang. With nowhere left to turn, Kenji finds solace in the arms of Shibasaki’s crime syndicate. 

6 years later, Kenji has established himself within the crime family and has developed a father-son relationship with the aging Shibasaki. Living the life of a powerful and esteemed Yakuza, Kenji’s ego has only grown stronger. Kenji instigates tensions with a rival syndicate, which continues to build until things turn violent and Kenji lands himself behind bars.

The film jumps forwards again by 14 years, to the day of Kenji’s release from prison. A lot has changed while he was inside: new laws strip organized crime syndicates of much of their power, with the Shibasaki family taking a particular hit, losing members, territory, and influence. Kenji emerges into this world, greeted by familiar faces that are aged and changed, a power structure altogether different than the one he’d known, and a community in shambles around him. As he slowly comes to terms with the fact that the era ended without him, he tries to reconnect with a woman he had come to love before his arrest, to find a new sense of family and belonging, but he soon finds he can’t escape his criminal ties.

While the premise isn’t anything new to the mafia movie genre , A Family remains a standout for it’s style. The performances from Go Ayano as Kenji and Hiroshi Tachi as Shibasaki, as well as the ensemble of Yakuza thugs, gangsters, friends and family are powerfully emotional and real. The aesthetics are exquisite, presenting a chilling and vivid snapshot of the stylishly ugly reality of Japanese organized crime. The characters fill the screen with colour against muted backdrops, but lose their vibrancy as the world of the Yakuza grows colder upon Kenji’s release. Handheld camera shots linger on tight close-ups giving a raw and intimate depiction of Kenji when he’s at his most unstable, while still shots show the stability and strength offered by Shibasaki’s organization and, later, the stillness of the world of crime in decline that Kenji returns to. 

The romance subplot is easily the film’s weakest element, however. Kenji’s relationship with Yuka, the woman he met in his glory days, is a bit of a stretch. In his Arrogance Kenji seems disingenuous at best and borderline abusive at worst, yet Yuka eventually falls for him anyways. 14 years later when Kenji returns from prison, Yuka knows full well the new way of the world and the dangers Yakuza life can bring with it. She initially rebukes Kenji, but eventually lets him back into her life to rekindle their relationship. 

While Kenji and Yuka’s relationship (and Yuka’s character, for that matter) are quite flat, it plays an important role in developing the theme of family and what that means to someone whose sense of connection has been robbed from them and challenged at every turn. Kenji’s desperate search for belonging leads to him making the choices that ultimately keep him from the connection he craves. Grim but moving, A Family paints a crushing picture of broken people, of love, loss, duty, honour, and of course, family found and made.

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Review by Phoenix Lennard Patron

A family 2020 ★★★★½.

Watched May 09 , 2021

Phoenix Lennard’s review published on Letterboxd:

I never thought I'd ever feel sorry for a criminal organization.

What an incredible, and beautiful film. Yakuza and the Family is a drama story, directed Fuji Michihito, about Kenji Yamamoto's life, in the Shibasaki-gumi Yakuza, from 1999, to 2019.

This film's story is powerful. An incredible tale about the rise and fall of the Shibazaki-gumi Yakuza, and about the main topic of the movie, family. Kenji starts as a rebellious, apathetic youth, but grows to be a respectable gentleman, after he joins Hiroshi Shibasaki's group.

Go Ayano does a phenomenal job, as Kenji Yamamoto. From playing a rebellious boy, to becoming a gentlemen, who believes he's finally found his true family, who see's Hiroshi Shibasaki as a father figure, to being an older man, who just wants to settle down, and retire. Honestly, there isn't a single bad performance in this film. As everyone gives a solid performance, in their respective roles.

The cinematography. Is. Gorgeous. Keisuke Imamura, the director of photography, gives the film some beautiful shots, of both Japan's night life, and of the city that the movie takes place in.

Please give this film a watch, you will not regret it.

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• NEW JAPANESE LEARNING RESOURCES: FALL 2021

ヤクザと家族, called A Family in English, is a film about the lives of modern-day yakuza. Yakuza are basically Japanese mafia members, and there are many gangs that make up the system. The movie portrays the world of yakuza, with its territorial feuds, hierarchies, rituals, and plenty of shady practices. Although originally produced in 2020, it was just released on Netflix in June, so you can check it out there.

This thrilling, emotional, and action-packed movie follows the protagonist, Kenji, through different stages of his life. After his father dies at a relatively young age, Kenji joins the yakuza and they become his new family. His dedication to his group leads him down paths where he must act out of honor and familial pride.

Once you start this film, you likely won't be able to stop watching it, so make sure you have two hours and fifteen minutes of your day available before you start. A Family will possibly teach you a lot about yakuza that you didn't know before. I found the lives of yakuza out in the real world, as well as how others perceive them even after becoming ex-yakuza, to be especially enlightening.

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The film premiered in Japan earlier this year, but it had its premiere at the Taipei Golden Horse film festival in November 2020.

• 3 Cast and Characters
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Summary [ ]

Cast and characters [ ].

• Go Ayano as Kenji Yamamoto
• Hiroshi Tachi as Hiroshi Shibasaki
• Machiko Ono as Yuka Kudo
• Yukiya Kitamura as Tsutomu Nakamura
• Hayato Ichihara as Ryuta Hosono
• Hayato Isomura as Tsubasa Kimura
• Shun Sugata as Makoto Takeda
• Suon Kan as Tetsuya Toyoshima
• Ryutaro Ninomiya as Kohei Ohara
• Taro Suruga as Reiji Kawayama
• Ryo Iwamatsu as Kazuhiko Osako
• Kosuke Toyohara as Masatoshi Kato
• Shinobu Terajima as Aiko Kimura

Gallery [ ]

Promotional Images [ ]

See More [ ]

References [ ]

• 1 A Part of You
• 2 Darragh (Bodkin)
• 3 Maeve (Bodkin)

Like a Dragon: Yakuza is coming to Prime Video this year and the Kiryu actor has already shown off the iconic back tattoo

The head of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio says it will "bring the games to life" and "add new surprises"

Now, that’s rad: The Like a Dragon series is being turned into a six-part TV show on Prime Video.

Based on the hugely popular series of crime drama games developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, Like a Dragon protagonist Kiryu Kazuma will be brought to life on screen by Kamen Rider Drive’s Ryoma Takeuchi.

Like a Dragon: Yakuza, directed by Masaharu Take, will be released in two batches of three episodes each on October 25 and November 1 (though Amazon’s latest promo suggests those in the west will be getting it on October 24, presumably due to time zones).

The series will draw inspiration from the first game in the series, 2005’s Yakuza, which saw the noble yakuza member Kiryu take the fall for a crime he didn’t commit – spending 10 years in prison for murder.

Like a Dragon: Yakuza will explore the dual timelines of 1995 and 2005 as childhood friends – likely Kiryu and yakuza buddy Nishikiyama – deal with the fallout from an act that entangles them within the criminal underworld of the fictional district of Kamurocho. 

The series was teased with Ryoma Takeuchi re-enacting Kiryu’s iconic fighting pose – and back tattoo.

Make the choice to take the next step. Like a Dragon: Yakuza comes to Prime Video October 24. pic.twitter.com/FasWRDpBez June 4, 2024

Speaking on his role during the announcement (H/T IGN ), Takeuchi said, "You can’t play Kiryu Kazuma without getting into shape, so I knew I had to throw myself into it. This was a job not only for me but also for the costume and makeup teams. It took two and a half hours just to prepare for this shot."

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In a press release, executive producer and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio head Masayoshi Yokoyama said, "While the games let you experience their world through the subjective lens, this adaptation will be the ultimately objective way to enjoy the show. I have no doubt that fans of the series will be drawn to how it brings the games to life and adds new surprises. Newcomers, I'm sure, will find themselves invested simply in the gritty realism of the show."

Like a Dragon: Yakuza is hitting Prime Video on October 25. For more, check out the best shows on Prime Video and our ranking of the best Yakuza games .

I'm the Senior Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, focusing on news, features, and interviews with some of the biggest names in film and TV. On-site, you'll find me marveling at Marvel and providing analysis and room temperature takes on the newest films, Star Wars and, of course, anime. Outside of GR, I love getting lost in a good 100-hour JRPG, Warzone, and kicking back on the (virtual) field with Football Manager. My work has also been featured in OPM, FourFourTwo, and Game Revolution.

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‘Like a Dragon: Yakuza’ Live-Action Series Adaptation of Hit Sega Game Heading to Prime Video (EXCLUSIVE)

Streaming giant Prime Video will release “Like a Dragon,” a live-action series adaptation of the SEGA game franchise “Yakuza Like a Dragon.”

The six-part crime-suspense-action series is directed by Take Masaharu (“100 Yen Love”) and Takimoto Kengo (“Kamen Teacher”) and stars Takeuchi Ryoma (multiple “Kamen Rider” titles) as the lead character, Kiryu Kazuma.

It will upload to Prime Video in two batches of three episodes on Oct. 25 and Nov. 1, with subtitled and dubbed versions in 30 languages.

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The series “showcases modern Japan and the dramatic stories of these intense characters, such as the legendary Kazuma Kiryu, that games in the past have not been able to explore,” Prime Video said.

Production is by The Fool. Executive producers are Erik Barmack, Roberto Grande and Joshua Long.

“I have poured out my heart, soul, and the experience that I have garnered over 35 years into ‘Like a Dragon: Yakuza’,” said director Take.

“The unfettered appeal for Japanese content from within Japan and other parts of the world has been growing exponentially. While Prime Video Japan continues to offer a variety of content across genres, adapting an internationally popular game franchise that has such deep resonance and layered characters presents a unique charm and makes for an extremely compelling watch,” said James Farrell, head of international originals, Amazon MGM Studios.

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Amazon Green-Lights Live-Action ‘Yakuza’ Series ‘Like A Dragon’, Taps ‘Kamen Rider Drive’ Star To Play Kiryu Kazuma

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In swearing fealty to the Dojima Family, Amazon has officially announced that a live-action adaptation of SEGA’s Yakuza video games is now in production for their eponymous streaming platform.

RELATED: ‘Yakuza’ Franchise Producer Masayoshi Yokoyama Says He’s Worried About Violence In Video Games: “It Is Imperative To Think About The Effects That This Can Have On Players”

Titled Like A Dragon (after the series’ original Japanese name), the six-episode miniseries will reportedly be “set in two time periods, 1995 and 2005, and follows the life, childhood friends and the repercussions of the decisions of a fearsome and peerless Yakuza warrior” – Kiryu Kazuma – “with a strong sense of justice, duty, and humanity”.

Notably, given the two specific years mentioned in the live-action series’ synopsis, it appears that the series will begin by adapting the events of the original 2005 Yakuza title (later remade as Yakuza Kiwami ), which begins in 1995 with Kiryu being sentenced to a ten-year prison sentence for a murder her did not commit before later picking back up in 2005 as he merges back into the world and attempts to clear his name.

Per a June 3rd exclusive from Variety’s Patrick Frater and Naman Ramachadran, the project will be directed by Take Masaharu ( Underdog: Part Two ) and Takimoto Kengo ( Kamen Teacher ) and star none other than Kamen Rider Drive lead Takeuchi Ryoma as the aforementioned Kiryu Kazuma.

Meanwhile, it’s screenplay and story will be provided by Sean Crouch ( The Exorcist TV series) and Nakamura Yugo with the Japanese version of the screenplay being provided by Yoshida Yasuhiro ( Plage ) and Yamada Kana ( Hare-Kon ).

RELATED: ‘Yakuza’ Franchise Producer Masayoshi Yokoyama Pushes Back Against Criticism Of ‘Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth’ English Localization: “There Is No Difference Between The Japanese And International Versions”

In a statement provided to Variety, a representative for Amazon Prime boasted that Like A Dragon “showcases modern Japan and the dramatic stories of these intense characters, such as the legendary Kazuma Kiryu, that games in the past have not been able to explore.”

Offering his own thoughts on the project, Take separately asserted, “I have poured out my heart, soul, and the experience that I have garnered over 35 years into Like a Dragon: Yakuza .”

Further, Amazon MGM Studios Head of International Originals James Farrell declared, “The unfettered appeal for Japanese content from within Japan and other parts of the world has been growing exponentially. While Prime Video Japan continues to offer a variety of content across genres, adapting an internationally popular game franchise that has such deep resonance and layered characters presents a unique charm and makes for an extremely compelling watch.”

However, perhaps the most notable of those who commented on the series’ announcement was Masayoshi Yokoyama, the current head of Yakuza development studio Ryugagotoku Studio.

“Since the day I first put pen to paper on the original ‘Yakuza’ script, I’ve never once thought about revisiting any of my work on the series,” said Yokoyama, who has served as a writer and producer on every Yakuza entry since its very first release. “It’s because I understand all too well the challenges and hardships that come with remaking a finished title. However, if I were ever sent to the past through some kind of cosmic joke, this is the experience I’d want to create. If I had to go through the wringer anyhow, I’d want to make the most engaging versions of Kamurochō and Kazuma Kiryu I could —and this show has it all.”

“While the games let you experience their world through the subjective lens, this adaptation will be the ultimately objective way to enjoy the show,” he concluded. “I have no doubt that fans of the series will be drawn to how it brings the games to life and adds new surprises. Newcomers, I’m sure will find themselves invested simply in the gritty realism of the show.”

At current, Like A Dragon is set to hit Prime Video in two batches of three simul-dubbed and -subbed episodes, with the first releasing on October 25th and the second on November 1st.

NEXT: SEGA Announces Live-Action Yakuza Adaptation Under Supervision Of Series Creator Toshihiro Nagoshi

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'Kidnapped' tells the historical horror story of an abducted Jewish child

John Powers

Enea Sala (center) plays the young Edgardo in Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara. Anna Camerlingo/Cohen Media Group hide caption

We’re living through days of powerful, often violent religious feeling — stories that might have felt like old dead history now take on a stinging new relevance.

That’s the case with Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara , the ferocious true story of a young Jewish boy forcibly taken from his parents by emissaries of the Pope in 1858. It was made by Marco Bellocchio, the great Italian filmmaker who first burst on the scene 59 years ago with his scorched-earth debut Fists in the Pocket .

Now 84 but still far from mellow, Bellocchio takes us back to the 19th century to tell a historical horror story steeped in Roman Catholic antisemitism.

The action begins in 1850s Bologna, which was then under the rule of the unpopular and highly conservative Pope Pius IX. The just-born Edgardo is the sixth son of a Jewish Bolognese family, whose housemaid, unbeknownst to them, baptizes the baby to save his soul.

When the Church’s inquisitor in Bolgona learns of this baptism six years later, he declares Edgardo a Christian. And because it’s illegal for non-Christians to raise a Christian child, he grabs the 6-year-old boy away from his agonized parents and ships him to Rome. There, as he yearns for his mother, Edgardo’s put into a boarding school for the children of converted Jews, where he’s surrounded by images of the crucifixion.

Naturally Edgardo’s parents are shattered and do everything they can to get him back — even waging a huge international PR campaign. Going to Rome, they make heartrending appeals to stony-faced priests who say they understand their sadness but can do nothing to alleviate it. After all, they are helping the boy become a proper Christian.

To avoid seeming politically weak, Pius IX refuses the world’s calls for Edgardo’s freedom. In fact, he doubles down on the kidnapping, personally guiding the boy’s Catholic education and having him baptized a second time.

Although Kidnapped is a straightforward historical drama about religious oppression, Edgardo’s tale is filled with startling twists and turns, especially when, in 1860, nationalist rioters overthrow Pius IX’s rule in Bologna. With new people in charge, the Bologna inquisitor is arrested for the kidnapping and we see how Edgardo has fallen through one of the trap doors of history. Had he simply been born a few years later, he wouldn’t have been taken from his Jewish home and forcibly made a Christian.

Even as the rebels go after the pope, we keep worrying about Edgardo’s fate in Rome. What happens to a young Jewish boy who’s cut off from his family and trained not just to be a good Catholic but to become a priest? What core of the original Edgardo remains? Who does he become as he moves into manhood? The answers are unsettling.

Now, at moments Kidnapped feels old-fashioned. Yet Bellocchio never falls into boring costume drama realism. Working in a painterly style, he pushes things toward the operatic — laying on surging music and endowing Edgardo with innocent good looks that border on the angelic. Actor Paolo Pierobon plays Pope Pius as a kind of opera buffa figure, hammy in a Marlon Brando sort of way — at once silly and creepy and sinister. In one of the film’s best scenes, Edgardo has a hallucinatory encounter with a crucifix that directly answers the falsehood that the Jews killed Christ.

Like me, Bellocchio was raised a Roman Catholic and is clearly appalled by the Church’s cruelty to the Mortara family and to all Jews, whom they treated as inferiors who must literally kiss the pope’s feet for decent treatment. He wants us to be appalled and angry, too.

Yet what gives the movie its timely resonance is not merely its depiction of antisemitism but what it shows about the dangerous politics of religious belief. Although religion officially deals in timeless universal truths, Kidnapped reminds us that these timeless universals are always bound up with historical questions of power. And where there’s power, there will be abuse.

Like A Dragon: Yakuza Live Action Series Coming To Amazon Prime

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• Like a Dragon: Yakuza is set to premiere as a 6-episode series on Amazon Prime Video on October 25.
• The first free episodes will drop at once, with the final three released on November 1.
• The story will be split between taking place in 1995 and 2005.

Like a Dragon is getting a live-action TV series, hosted by Amazon Prime Video. The series, Like a Dragon: Yakuza, will consist of six episodes, and it will hit the streaming service on October 25.

As reported by Variety , the series has already cast the lead role of Kiryu Kazuma. He'll be played by Takeuchi Ryoma, known for the Japanese series Kamen Rider Drive.

Like A Dragon Is Getting A Live Action Adaptation

We don't know much about the series just yet, other than it will be split between taking place in 1995 and 2005. It's unclear how this will be handled throughout the six-episode run, but we'll likely get a better idea when there's a trailer.

Of course, this comes right off the back of Amazon's success with the Fallout series. This was both a huge success for the streaming service and the games, reigniting interest in the most recent entries . Like a Dragon has the upper hand of having much more recent games to promote too, so it will be in a good place if the show drives fans back to the main releases.

The Yakuza Movie Is Great Because It Embraces The Absurdity Of The Games

Yakuza's movie adaptation nails the game's vibes, cheese and all.

Unlike Fallout, Like a Dragon: Yakuza will get a staggered release. The first three episodes will be made available on October 25, and the final three on November 1. It's not quite the weekly episodic release that some audiences were hoping for after Fallout, but it will at least stop spoilers from being spread before most have even tuned into the first episode.

This isn't Like a Dragon's first foray into live action. In 2007, we got the film Yakuza: Like a Dragon, although it received mixed reviews. Interestingly, that very same title would be used for a game in 2020. Eventually, western releases dropped the Yakuza title altogether , going for Like a Dragon, as it's always been called in Japan. Now, to make matters slightly more confusing, this series will be called Like a Dragon: Yakuza, flipping the title of the film.

I’m Not The Target Audience At All, But Concord Looks Cool

I don't play many multiplayer games, but Overwatch meeds Guardians of the Galaxy is a pitch I can get behind.

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