Blood of Revenge

An absolutely standard period yakuza movie from the Toei conveyorbelt, lifted above the ruck by Tsuruta's wonderful performance (he was the genre's first star) and by Kato's distinctive mise en scène of long takes and wide-angle, deep focus compositions. The Kiyatatsu Clan is trying to go straight as a legitimate construction company in Osaka, 1907, but the renegade Hoshino Clan stops at nothing to sabotage its efforts. Asajiro (Tsuruta) has to keep civic building projects on schedule, preach non-violence, tame his late oyabun's son and suffer heartbreak because he can't save his beloved geisha Hatsue (Fuji). It ends, of course, in rivers of blood.