The Yakuza

Director and producer Sydney Pollack introduces the celebrated Japanese actor Ken Takakura, in only his second Hollywood picture and his first substantial role, as Kendo martial arts guru and underworld figure Tanaka Ken, visited in Kyoto by American private eye and WWII vet Harry Kilmer (Robert Mitchum), to whom he owes a profound family debt, in The Yakuza, 1974.

First appearance of top-billed Robert Mitchum, in Los Angeles, as low-energy detective and WWII vet Harry, taking a call from war buddy and Tokyo-based businessman Tanner (Brian Keith), who’s just been threatened by Japanese gangsters, who mentions an old love interest (Keiko Kishi), in The Yakuza, 1974.

Complex exposition by director Sydney Pollack, from the screenplay by Leonard and Paul Schrader and Robert Towne, as Japanese-resident American WWII vet Wheat (Herb Edelman) explains for youngster Dusty (Richard Jordan), the son of another war-buddy, the background of Harry (Robert Mitchum), with whom he’s traveling, and his old-flame Eiko (Keiko Kishi), in The Yakuza, 1974.

Stylish framing and staging in the opening, compromised maybe by dorky 1970's men's fashion which has, evidently, consumed Tokyo, with Kyosuke Machida as Japanese mob messenger Kato performing a rite (with Akiyama Masaru) in service of chieftan Tono (Eiji Okada), in Sydney Pollack's often-overlooked The Yakuza, 1974, starring Robert Mitchum and Ken Takakura.