In the snowy region of Hokuriku, Yakuza firebrand Noboru Kawada (Hiroki Matsukata) finds himself caught in the middle of a proxy war between his boss, who has formed an alliance with a crime syndicate in the city, and the primarily rivals of said syndicate. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Kawada’s loose cannon nature causes everyone to regret their decisions when Kawada sets his sights on getting vengeance for putting him into an uncompromising situation. Hopefully Kawada can survive this tense situation by keeping cool and not losing his head!

The concept of supplanting Fukasaku’s trademark gangster in-fighting to the freezing regions of Hokuriku is a great one. The contrast of white on red always sparks on screen, made manifest particularly well by frequent Fukasaku cinematographer Toru Nakajima who manages Fukasaku’s controlled chaos camerawork with aplomb. Matsukata as the violent lone wolf shines in the central role. He comes across every bit as savage and unpredictable as the real life person on which he is based (a bit more on that later). The opening does a great job of illustrating this point as we witness Kawada’s boss buried up to his neck in the snow with Kawada barreling down on him in a jeep. It establishes immediately that this is a guy you do not want to piss off regardless of who you are. This is done a couple more times in the film as well, although with decidedly different results the last go-round. Like most Fukasaku films, the violence is frenetic and frequent but never really feels gratuitous to me. These are violent characters performing violent acts. But equally ambitious in her own way is Kawada’s mistress Kiku (Yumiko Nagawa) who knows what she wants and goes for it. It’s rare to see a female character in one of these films with so much personal agency. The rest of the cast acquit themselves well also, including the always reliable Ko Nishimura as the boss and even Sonny Chiba in a smaller thug role. Sadly Hokuriku Proxy War would prove to be Fukasaku’s final yakuza film due the fallout from its release. As I mentioned before, Kawada’s character was based on a real life yakuza figure who lived through a scenario very similar to this. Interestingly enough, this same real gangster was actually gunned down in a coffee shop shortly after the film’s release in a very similar fashion to the way Kawada is nearly killed in the film. Fukasaku seemed to feel a personal responsibility in part for giving the killers the idea of style of execution and retired from gangster films for good. At least Fukasaku would go on to make a variety of films in various genres until his excellent swan song Battle Royale.

Like the other Toei films Radiance has released, Hokuriku Proxy War‘s transfer was provided by Toei as a high definition digital video file and it looks quite good. Fukasaku is know for shooting in a gritty style, and the transfer here represents Fukasaku’s intentions very well. Fukasaku’s camerawork can be so chaotic at times that the depth of clarity is necessary in order to follow the action, and the image quality here delivers admirably. The release includes the original Japanese mono in a nicely balanced track that comes across very clean with no major distortion in the audio. At times it sounds a bit tinny, but that’s fairly common with Fukasaku films and is mostly likely inherent in the source. As usual, Radiance has included several nice, meaningful extras including two new interviews with writer Koji Takada and actor Yoko Takahashi as well as an interview with film historian Akihiko Ito discussing the real life murder case that resulted from the film I mentioned earlier. The limited edition also includes a physical booklet with three essays originally published in 1977 and translated by Tom Mes. The first two, from Muneo Nakamura and Motohiko Kano, both published in Kinema Junpo, tackle different aspects of Hokuriku Proxy War, one on Kawada’s Machiavellian tendencies and the other focusing on the female characters in the film. The third essay is more of an overview of Fukasaku’s career leading up to Hokuriku Proxy War by Isao Fujisawa originally printed in Scenario. It’s an interesting approach including all era-specific essays, but I honestly like the more modern reflection on the lasting impact of the film that the contemporary essays on other releases provide as well.

While Hokuriku Proxy War may have been Kinji Fukasaku’s final yakuza film, at least he left the genre with a bang. The film is violent and frenetic and served exceptionally well by the snowy setting. Highly recommended for fans of Fukasaku’s action cinema!