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9 out of 10 people found the following review useful: A movie that doesn't age, 19 November 2003 Author: 6325 from Germany
Unbelievable - this ultraviolent gangster flick is from 1972 - if it wasn't for the poor monophonic sound mix on the dvd, you almost wouldn't recognize the age! Fast cuts, ultracool gangster hero, bloody beat-ups and shootings - everything that Beat Takeshi Kitano is exploring and developing to a further stage in his brilliant movies 'Hana-Bi' or 'Brother' can be found in this masterpiece as a blueprint.Fans of Asian action cinema won't be disappointed - the film is moving so fast, the inevitable climax almost let's you lose breath - this is a true gem! Get it, see it!
8 out of 11 people found the following review useful: Fun, crazy yakuza flick, 11 July 2001 Author: Mike Jasik (mike@jasik.org) from Brookln, NY
Outlaw Killer or as it says in the film, Street Mobster, is a bloody violent look into a totally self-destructive renegade street punk that can't ever seem to back down from a fight, no matter how suicidal. Truly a hilarious, incredibly charismatic character. So funny.The film follows him as he talks about his youth, his incarceraton and picks up with him creating a new gang. Parts are a bit too melodramatic, especially at the end, but the characters are well-crafted and the action sequences are frenetic and fun.A unique view of yakuza and street punk life in Japan in the early '70s from crazy-guy Fukasaku, the man behind Tora! Tora! Tora! and the fantastic Battle Royale.
5 out of 6 people found the following review useful: 1972 and all that, 6 August 2005 Author: squelcho
This has a similar look to some of the early 70s New York gangster and Blaxploitation flicks, only with an eye for the big moody shadows that wouldn't be out of place in a Carol Reed movie. The acting is pretty good, even when the hero is tired and emotional, and the few characters that are fleshed out are never let down by the script. It's easy to see how Riki Takeuchi and Takashi Miike misspent their youth. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a classic, but it compares very favourably with the the best of its era. The twang of the jaws harp and the jarring off-key harmonica are a nod in the direction of Ennio Morricone. The hyper realism (and melodrama)is very much of its day. Think of Larry Cohen, Sergio Leone, Roman Polanski, Sergio Corbucci, Sam Fuller, Sam Peckinpah, Don Siegel, and their ilk in the 60s and 70s, and accept that film has always been an international conspiracy by artists with attitude. Audiences may be isolated by language, but filmmakers are interested in the visual aspects, and they don't need translation, only an understanding of technique. Kurosawa and Mishima opened up Japanese cinema to the world, and Japanese film makers responded by drawing influences from the wider world.This movie takes the technical influences and extrapolates them into the boom years of the Japanese economy. Where's there's money, there's organised crime. The casual unaffiliated street punk was a dying breed in the 70s. It's noticeable that the "punks" don't wear suits. They look more like refugees from the beatnik era, and the jazzy sections of the score (that accompany their drunken good times) seem to be saying that their day is done. Kinji Fukasaku is as deserving of credit as any of the aforementioned masters of pulp. His eye is true, and whenever he has a decent script, he makes a good or a great movie, usually on a tight budget. Who could ask for more?
5 out of 6 people found the following review useful: Doomed, restless, violent, self-destructive, Japanese, street punk classic., 25 July 2005 Author: Ham_and_Egger from Indianapolis, Indiana
The proud, self-destructive, punk/anti-hero violates national boundaries without compunction in late 60s/early 70s cinema. Here Isamu Okita (Bunta Sugawara), often simply called "Bro", is reminiscent not only of Alex (A Clockwork Orange) but also of Ivan (The Harder They Come), Johnny Boy (Mean Streets) and even of Michel (À bout de soufflé).'Gendai yakuza: hito-kiri yota' (which, in English, apparently means something like Outlaw Killer or Street Mobster) is a restless, prowling movie that occasionally bursts into hyperkinetic action. Something about the verging-on-ludicrous action scenes gives the viewer almost the same sense of release that Bro and the other punks feel.Isamu is a punk, a whore-son, born on the margins of post-war society. By virtue of his own courage and propensity for violence he becomes the leader of a street gang and attracts the attention of the more established yakuza crimelords. Most of the drama revolves around the conflict between his pride and his superiors.'Street Mobster' is very well filmed and has aged well, it's influence on films like 'Fight Club' is palpable.
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful: Classy Fukasaku street crime gem, 30 November 2009 Author: t-birkhead from United Kingdom
Isamu Okita is one angry young man and Street Mobster is his story, yet another gem from the masterful Kinji Fukasaku. Symbolically born on the day of Japan's defeat in the 2nd World War, he is born with the seed of his own doom and for all his little pleasures this film is one of a compelling downward spiral, as our anti-hero gets himself thrown in jail for assault and then emerges to find a world that has left him behind, one in which he is a violent anachronism, his objectionable behaviour a setback. Like a lot of Fukasaku films and the Yakuza genre in general this is not a film of revolutionary plotting, nor is it stylistically as inventive as some of the directors other work, but it puts its simplicity to great use, it is a fierce and intimate tale of post war city desolation and desperate male violence. The gritty cinematography of Hanjiro Nakazawa lends every frame a run-down and hostile feel, even settings with more expensive trappings or skyline scraping buildings have no glamour. Gritty too is Fukasaku's direction, its frequent frenzy contrasts with powerful moments of calm, the frenetic fighting is often impactful and the cluttered shots and design give the film an intensely crowded, vividly zoomed in feel. Bunta Sugawara is terrific as Isamu, an openly abrasive and unlikeable sort whose constant antagonistic behaviour masks desperation, a striving to survive and never surrender, in short pulling against what the opening suggests to be his constant fate. Sugawara's performance makes this would be loathsome character compelling, one can understand why people are drawn to him, why the girl he raped in the past clings to him and why the well to do older boss Yato wishes to help him out. The sexual politics of Okita's relationship with his lady are perhaps strange to Western audiences but it seems to me her attraction to him is part that he is all she has and part an act of desperate self assertion. Its certainly a complex and moving relationship, though a little underused in the film. Aside from Sugawara, Noboru Ando is good as Boss Yato, shrewd and controlled, he almost seems to know from the start the consequences of associating with Okita but does so anyway. The film then is about it seems to me the conflict between fate and self determination as well as the common trope of the conflict between Yakuza values and human realities and its themes are well worked through its course. For all its energy the film has a bit less of a kick than the best of the genre, the violence not quite fierce enough, the emotions always raw but not coming out enough for the relationships of the film to achieve their full potential. Perhaps it is simply because the film is about an objectionable man, nut it wasn't as consistently engaging as it could have been. Still, a very good film nonetheless and amply recommended to fans of the genre.
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful: "The first person I hit was my mom", 20 June 2008 Author: chaos-rampant from Greece
"Street Mobster" is part of the early 70's crop of Japanese yakuza films that were spearheaded by Kinji Fukasaku, who is once again behind the helm without missing a beat. All the mandatory elements that make a yakuza film work are present: forming and switching of alliances between yakuza families, fistfights, stabbings, a guerilla view of Tokyo, frenetic action sequences, sleaze. But whereas a lesser, more workmanlike director would work these things from a checklist, Fukasaku instills so much energy that even the most rudimentary of things are a pleasure to watch.Indeed "Street Mobster" is packed full of raw, animalistic energy that more than makes up for the fairly predictable nature of the story. In typical yakuza fashion, yakuza gets out of prison after doing time for a hit, forms a small gang, takes on the bigger families, carnage ensues. It's all part of what makes the genre such pure, unadulterated fun though. However all these typical genre staples take a wildly exhilarating life of their own through Fukasaku's hyperkinetic and gritty style. There's no glamour or glory to be found in Fukasaku's violence: only brutality. Stylization is kept to a bare minimum with lots of hand-held shots and cameras constantly on the move that blend in with the action. The same guerilla tactics are used for the exterior shots that capture the seedy, downtrodden side of a Tokyo full of possibilities. Dilapidated warehouses, cheap bath houses, dark rooms, dim-lit diners, rundown neighborhoods with wooden cabins, again there's no glitz or neon lights shining in Fukasaku's yakuza universe.Regular collaborator Bunta Sugawara takes on the role of the titular Street Mobster, but gone is his cool (and sullen) demeanor from other yakuza films. He's responsible for some serious scenery consumption, wildly overacting, often approaching even Kikuchiyo territory (Mifune's character from Seven Samurai) but with the same honest, natural approach that made him the great actor that he was. He's also one of the best physical actors I've seen and you can see it paying off in dividends with every fight scene he gets involved with (and there are lots, don't worry).If you'd like to see a different kind of gangster film, one that relies more on viscera, grittiness and raw energy than faux glamour and hip mafiosos, you should definitely invest in Street Mobster. It's pulpy, fast-paced and balls-out. 70's Japanese action cinema in top form…
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