Yakuza Wives
directed by Hideo Gosha
starring Shima Iwashita, Rino Katase
88 Films
In the mid 1980s, Japan’s economy was booming, but people were becoming increasingly less interested in going to see Japanese movies at the theater. Studios were looking for ways to breathe new life into their films to compete with productions from the west. Toei Films turned to their bread and butter, the Yakuza film, in an attempt to rebuild their audience at the cinema. Yakuza Wives, directed by Hideo Gosha (Sword of the Beast, 1965), subverts many standard Yakuza tropes by telling the story of a gangland power struggle from the point of view of the women behind the men with the guns and tattoos. 88 Films rolls out an unexpected gem from Japan with this thoughtful gangster epic that manages to elevate the exploitation trappings of the genre without losing the grit and outlandish violence that make these films so popular and rewatchable.
Tamaki Awatsu, the wife of a powerful but incarcerated mob boss, attempts to keep her husband’s crew in line as well as his place in the Yakuza hierarchy, as he is the probable heir to the top position in the Osaka underworld. On top of these unofficial duties, she is also responsible for the morale of the other prison widows and managing her own family, particularly her younger sister, Makato. Chaos ensues when the top boss dies unexpectedly from a heart attack, leaving a power vacuum at the top. With just three months to go in her husband’s sentence, Tamaki brokers a deal to leave the position open until her husband can assume his rightful spot. Soon war breaks out amongst the gangs, as they try to gain power in this period of uncertainty. Tamaki desperately tries to hang onto her position. Complicating matters for Tamaki is her little sister Makato, who is raped by Kiyoshi Sugita, a member of a rival gang, while on vacation in Guam. Shortly after her return to Japan, Makato marries Sugita. This decision puts the sisters at odds with each other, furthering the bloodshed and leading to tragic outcomes for both women that will alter both of their lives.
Let’s address the obvious. Makato marrying her rapist and then the film making him the most sympathetic character in the film is a bold and disturbing choice. It isn’t unheard of in Japanese cinema and literature, but for a film that basks in modernity, the retrograde misogyny is shocking, although I doubt if it registered as such 40 years ago. To make this plot point even more troubling is the fact that the script was based on Shōko Ieda’s non-fiction book Gang Wives, based on a year of research getting to know and interviewing real life Yakuza wives and girlfriends. The thought that this rape-to-romance connection is fact-based is even more disturbing than it being nearly salacious screenwriting.
Hideo Gosha’s film crackles with 1980s cinematic energy but remains at its core a classic melodrama of the two sisters trying to gain or hold onto their power and place in the world while maintaining their family bonds and obligations. That struggle at the heart of the story is what connects the characters to the audience, aided immensely by the actresses Shima Iwashita and Rino Katase.
