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Bookmark this pageThe Wolves (1971)
Director: Hideo Gosha
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Hideo Gosha is virtually unknown in the West, and The Wolves doesn't show up in any film guide I'm aware of, but it's a yakuza movie in a class of its own, a stunningly realised thriller about a gangster (Nakadai, the singularly intense actor from Kagemusha and Ran) whose early release from jail precipitates further bloodshed even as he endeavours to prove his absolute loyalty by fending off a gang war. Set in late 1920s Japan, in the wake of a general pardon of prisoners, The Wolves is reminiscent of Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest, a novel which has also been linked to Kurosawa's Yojimbo, Leone's A Fistful of Dollars and the Coens' Miller's Crossing. This melancholic, hard-boiled, and utterly gripping movie belongs in that company. Gosha's muscular, Expressionist colour imagery blazes through the screen.Author: TCh
Cast & crew
Director: Hideo Gosha
Producer: Sanezumi Fujimoto, Eiji Shiino, Masayuki Sato
Cast: Tatsuya Nakadai, Noboru Ando, Komaki Kurihara, Kyoko Enami, Isao Natsuyagi, Tetsuro Tanba full cast
Genre(s): Thrillers
Duration: 133 mins
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