Graveyard of Honor

Graveyard of Honor (2002)

When a young man named Ishimatsu prevents the killing of a Yakuza Godfather he gains the man's loyalty and trust. This allows him to quickly rise thru the ranks and after serving time for nearly killing a man that spoke badly about the Godfather he leaves prison ready to jump back into the life. All goes well for Ishimatsu until a misunderstanding between he and the rest of the family beings to spiral his life out of control. Before he even realizes it he has put several members of the family in the hospital, including the Godfather, and has been kicked out of the family. Only thru a friend he made in prison, Imamura who is a member of another Yakuza family is he even able to have somewhere to hide. Knowing that he is doomed Ishimatsu starts down a destructive path of Heroine addiction and violence that sees him kill or severely hurt everyone around himself. It simply becomes a matter of time before either the police or the Yakuza families catch up to him first.

First thing I have to say is that this is initially a difficult movie to follow. The action comes at you quickly, the story starts at the end before backtracking, and there are a lot of characters to keep track of. But trust me if you stick with it after the first half hour the movie begins to make sense. Now the question is if it is worth sticking with? The answer is yes. The story isn’t fun, but it is really interesting. Right from the start where Ishimatsu “claims” his wife you know the guy has some serious issues. I’ve never watched a movie where the protagonist was so completely disturbed and unlikable. Thru the entire movie Ishimatsu doesn’t show the slightest bit of human compassion or kindness and is a real bastard at times. When he is lonely he decides to addict his wife to heroine so they can shoot up together. He turns on and tries to kill all of his friends, and when he finds out he didn’t finish the job he comes back. This is a nasty and brutal movie that keeps the violence realistic and disturbing. Now there are a couple of pretty big flaws with the story. As I said the beginning can be a bit confusing and is hard to follow. While this gets better the movies still does have times where as an audience you need to be paying close attention to what is going on. Additionally at times the movie’s pacing is far too slow for my tastes. It is a long movie and feels like it at times.

This is a movie from director Takashi Miike so there might be an expectation of over the top violence and action. While there is some of this at times this movie is more about the character of Ishimatsu and his flaws as a human being. So if you are expecting a quick paced flick with huge amounts of violence (ala. Ichi) you will be disappointed. Now trust me there is some decent violence, but this isn’t the sort of blood drenched Yakuza movie that Miike is known for.

If stylized Japanese Yakuza movies are something you are into then I recommend you check out Graveyard of Honor. If found it to be very interesting and at times entertaining in spite of some flaws. But if you aren’t into these sorts of movies, or haven’t checked them out before you might want to try a different movie to get your “feet wet” in this subgenre. Also while I liked the movie I’m not sure that I’ll ever feel the need to watch it again.

This movie is available from the fine folks at http://www.animeigo.com/ Check out their website for more information about this and all of their titles.

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer