Cops vs. Thugs - Is There a Difference?

I had to watch this one twice and make a chart the second time just to keep up with what was going on. Kinji Fukasaku directs Kenkei tai soshiki boryoku or Cops vs. Thugs in English starring Bunta Sugawara as Detective Kuno and Tatsuo Umemiya as his nemesis Inspector Kaida. Umemiya also starred in Yakuza Graveyard as the yakuza underboss blood brother of the main character. There's a few other characters in the film, but their credits aren't indexed to the characters so it's hard to identify them.

Apparently, this film is based on actual events and that is prehaps the only reason why this film has to be so complicated. It involves three crime organizations: the Ohara organization, the Hirotani organization and the Kawade organization. A city official is tied to the Ohara organization, but while Ohara is in prison the official is making deals with the Kawade organization to help them fix an auction. Tomoyasu the city councilman is not making many friends. The Kawade organization steals some of the club girls who used to work for Hirotani, which starts a bit of a turf war. Det. Kuno is closely tied to Hirotani, a killer who Kuno helped escape several years earlier. The cops in the town generally leave the yakuza alone and focus their efforts on the communists.

After the auction is revealed to have been fixed, the results are overturned and Hirotani is appointed as the trustee of the land. He tries to sell the land for its proper market value, but that doesn't go down well. A new police inspector rides into town and decides that the friendly treatment of the yakuza isn't going to help anyone. He arrests old Ohara and squeezes him to hand over his affairs to the Kawade group. Inspector Kaida decides to vet his squad of any friendlies and an older officer, Yoshiura resigns from the force. He goes to work as a consultant for the city official and pretty much gives away all the Hirotani family secrets. Detective Kuno is a known associate of Hirotani and is scorned by Kaida. When Kaida leads a raid on Hirotani's offices, the friendship between Hirotani and Kuno is ended. Hirotani's men take the consultant Yoshiura hostage and bring the police into a standoff. Kuno goes in and negotiates a deal for the release of Yoshiura and the safe passage of Hirotani's men. As Hirotani is led outside, he pulls a gun on his former friend who trusted him one last time. During a scuffle, Hirotani is shot and killed. Inspector Kaida resigns and gets a job with the company that had the successful bid on the land. Det. Kuno is transferred to a small town and is mysteriously killed while investigating an accident.

The film is a lot more complicated than that, but I can barely keep abreast of what I've written even with an org chart. I take back what I said about the Toei strip logo. I thought the music was part of the strip, but that apparently changes with each film. The visual still kicks ass though. The music in this film was typical, and still nice to listen to. No mouth organ though.