The Yakuza Papers: Battles Without Honor and Humanity

The violent, documentary-like film chronicles the underworld tribulations of Shozo Hirono (Bunta Sugawara), a young ex-soldier and street thug in post-war Hiroshima. Starting in the open-air black markets of bombed-out Hiroshima in 1945, the film spans a period of more than ten years. The plot consists of a changing of the guard of new families and organizations with the same feuds and people, punctuated by the gritty violence. It gave way to four sequels, which form a sprawling yakuza epic. The overall tone of the series is bleak, violent and chaotic, expressing the futility of the struggles between yakuza families. [source: Wikipedia]