Final Episode (1974)

Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Final Episode is part five and the final installation of a series of yakuza films directed by Kinji Fukasaku. In the wake of a big police crackdown, Akira Kobayashi’s icily sun- glassed Takeda attempts to transform the Hiroshima yakuza families into a legitimate political organization: The Tensei Coalition. When the young Matsumura ascends to the chairmanship of the coalition, the older, hardened yakuza led by Jo Shishido (BRANDED TO KILL) seize one last opportunity to stir up chaos and bloodshed. Culminating with the arrests, deaths, or retirement of the first postwar yakuza generation, this milestone series draws to an ambivalent close.