>>357729>>357746That's how all the great yakuza epics go. It's like you have to watch them once for the gist of the plot and then again to actually follow the characters.
>>357747An interesting result of this is there are tons of Japanese movies from the late 50's to the early 70's where the sentiment is entirely against Japanese honor and tradition since they were made by people who saw traditional ideas lead them directly to getting nuked and firebombed. Later directors who were too young or not alive to remember wartime Japan ended up romanticizing their old values and attributing them to an idealized Japan that never existed, and that's pretty much the image that's dominated global culture since. Godzilla Minus One surprised me by swinging the pendulum back towards the immediate post-war sentiments against the old honor code, so I'm interested in whether we're going to see new movies explore ideas from that angle again.
I'm no expert, but if you're interested in more directors from that period who were disillusioned by Japanese tradition after the war check out Yasuzo Masumura and Yasuharu Hasebe. They feel fresh despite being so old because of how few movies depict Japanese society as soul crushing these days.