Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Walter Sloane Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Caryl It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Niaz Islam Arif Even for 70's standard this film was quite lame. Everything about this film felt pretty dull and boring.The most ridiculous thing about the film is the casting. There are bunch of old timers in this so called action based film, which made the action sequences a bit funny rather than exciting. And their acting performance in the film was below average also. The expressions in their face and the dialogue delivery seemed very amateur. The script was a typical one, it had no strong or moving character which audience could admire. It neither had any gripping story nor have any dramatic climax. Not recommended.

Mr-Fusion There's a seductive quality to the opening of "The Yakuza", between the score and the stylized credit sequence, that just draws you in. I get lost in its attractiveness. It's kinda like "Chinatown" in that regard, but I was surprised at just how nice this movie is to look at. They captured Japan's outdoor beauty, the sets are striking (really dig Herb Edelman's open floorplan house), and the Kyoto Convention Center is amazing.But the film's real power lies in its well-written story, which drags grizzled Robert Mitchum back to Japan only to be mixed up in the workings of the Japanese mob. It's here that we get a crash course on the discipline, sacrifice and honor (twisted though it may be for some of these people) that make up this culture; and just how one's life can be made or broken over the importance of a debt to another person. "The Yakuza" isn't without its shootouts, but they culminate in a truly fine swordfight - one that sees one man stare down many. The movie's final moments with Mitchum and Takakura is a moving piece of cinema, and one hell of an ending. There's a profound sadness once we hit the end credits, but it's a story very well told.Side note: if you're a comics reader, this pairs remarkably well with the Claremont/Miller run on Wolverine.10/10

Edgar Soberon Torchia Two good scriptwriters and a filmmaker whose highest achievement was perhaps the comedy "Tootsie", add to a rather flat and artificial film that is neither a thriller nor a yakuza film, but a complex drama about ethics (with historical resonance, not only of Japan, but of the US-Japan relations) that could have been much better in capable hands. Writer Paul Schrader followed this with his script for Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver", while Robert Towne had already written Hal Ashby's "The Last Detail" and --also in 1974-- Roman Polanski's "Chinatown": "The Yakuza" proves how good Scorsese, Ashby and Polanski were, and that Sydney Pollack was a standard filmmaker. I admit that I never liked his films. I even walked out of "Bobby Deerfield". But after all these years, reading or hearing good things about "The Yakuza", I decided to give it a try. In the opening credits, Dave Grusin's supposedly hip score starts the distortion of a tale that, in essence, unravels as it goes through an intricately sinuous labyrinth to reflect on dignity, love, ethics, tradition, betrayal, resentment, death; and furthermore, as I previously suggested, it insinuates, perhaps inadvertently, the bad conscience of a few American citizens who witnessed the assault on Japanese culture by American politicians and military men after the end of Second World War (a subject intelligently dealt by Shohei Imamura in "Vengeance Is Mine"), not to mention the barbaric physical harm done with nuclear bombs. Some persons have also suggested a graver cultural distortion in Pollack's romanticized vision of the Japanese gangsters (for a more reliable portrait of the seedy yakuzas, see "Minbo no onna", the film for which its director Juzo Itami supposedly lost his life), but as the time ran, I could not care less. "The Yakuza" became worse, and when a night club scene arrived in which a singer performed a ballad about the yakuza code, I knew I only had two options. I saw it completely… unfortunately a few days after watching Masaki Kobayashi's masterpiece "Harakiri".

ferdinand1932 This film has a strong reputation built on Schrader and Towne's writing talent and with a cast and director all in good form. While it may have been seen as strong in its time; it has faded considerably over 30 years later.Starting with the writing, it is functional but somewhat inert and lifeless and this dryness is exemplified in a scene in a kitchen when a Japanese character tells the young American what the Yakuza are and it's a straight recitation that might have been lifted from an encyclopedia. It would be unusual for an English speaker to say such a thing in that way, but for a Japanese saying it is just bad writing and editing. Then there is the long expositions of back story and how Japan is different; and also the dreaded Western perceptions of Japanese myth and ritual. All that Asian mysticism bound up with warrior culture is well beyond its use by date now. It was new in 1974, but that dates the film and its sensibility very strongly.Then there is Mitchum and Keith. Mitchum was a straight up no nonsense actor and worked well as a tough guy, but here he is too stony faced; too much like a dead fish and wooden that it drags on the film. He stands, speaks and reacts but hardly acts. Keith is not much more interesting and a lesser presence. It's not helped by direction that is sluggish, lacking dynamic energy and close to a "Starsky and Hutch" episode.Overall, a rather mediocre effort from a team that had some great highs and was very capable, but this is not one of their best. As such it has not lasted very well.