Yakuza Wives (1986) 88 Films Blu-ray Review

Verdict

3.5

Summary

88 Films brings Yakuza Wives to home video for the first time in North America, and the premium (but limited to 4000 units) presentation is stellar for fans and newcomers alike. Treated as an undiscovered treasure, this title comes in a sparkling high definition transfer, and comes with a handful of bonus features that boost the experience of watching the film.

Plot:

Wives of Yakuza gangsters run the business while their husbands are in prison.

Review:

With her husband doing hard time in prison, Tamaki (Shima Iwashita) steps up and takes control – with permission and a blessing of the gangster clans around her – of the family business. She comes from humble origins: Her husband runs a small, simple business, and her beautiful sister Makoto (Rino Katase) is 24 and still a single virgin by choice. Tamaki wants to arrange a marriage for her to strengthen the clans, and has even bought her the engagement ring to get things going. Vowing to seriously consider it, Makoto goes on holiday to the coast to soak in the sun, and while she’s there she captures the eye of a vicious mid-ranking yakuza enforcer named Kiyoshi (Masanori Sera), who tries charming her, but instead mercilessly rapes her and then declares he wants to marry her. When she comes home a sullied woman, she rejects her sister’s proposal to arrange a marriage and decides to marry her rapist to fulfill some kind of need to feel honorable, but she does it in secret because Kiyoshi is with an opposing yakuza group, an enemy of her own clan. This, obviously, causes untold complications between the yakuza gangs, and Kiyoshi tries making peace with Tamaki (and is scorned and mocked for his efforts), and then when an attempt is made on his life (several of his friends are assassinated in front of him and Makoto), he goes rogue and makes things worse when he tries to take over his own clan, putting him at the top of everyone’s hit list.

A hard-hitting melodrama with some shocking scenes and blunt, graphic sexuality, Yakuza Wives was the first of a slew of sequels and spinoffs that concern the saga of a group of longsuffering and ambitious women within the criminal underworld of Japan. Its modern sensibility is deftly handled by filmmaker Hideo Gosha, and the leads all competently portray these characters that inhabit this grimy world. While the genre isn’t necessarily my “cup of tea,” I’d be interested in following these characters in the sequels that followed.

Bonus Materials