Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Police Tactics: the fourth film in Fukasaku Kinji’s crime pentalogy is a direct continuation of the previous entry; as such, the complex story of alliances made, broken, transformed into rivalries, and remade moves towards some conclusion. As the title suggests, for the first time in the whole series a third large player enters the fray; it is needless to mention the implicit criticism of security forces that comes with it. Again, the film keeps a consistent tone, theme, and aesthetics (veteran to the series director of photography Yoshida Sadaji and new to the series editor Miyamoto Shintaroo make sure of that). Sugawara Bunta takes a bit of a back seat as the action expands, and the large ensemble cast, generally great faces, performs well, with the most relevant characters getting clear traits.

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Battles Without Honor and Humanity