Brotherhood Complicates the Badge

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MOVIE REVIEWS
American Yakuza [Limited Edition]
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Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller
Year Released: 1993, Arrow Video Blu-ray 2026
Runtime: 1h 36m
Director(s): Frank A. Cappello
Writer(s): Takashige Ichise, Max Strom, John Allen Nelson
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Ryô Ishibashi, Michael Nouri, Franklyn Ajaye, Robert Forster
Where to Watch: available now, order your copy here: www.arrowvideo.com, www.mvdshop.com, or www.amazon.com

RAVING REVIEW: What happens when being loyal to your job begins to feel personal? That’s an interesting focus in AMERICAN YAKUZA. This movie appears to be a standard undercover police story, yet it frequently returns to a more complex emotional problem beneath the shooting. It’s a film more concerned with the gradual loss of being sure of things than with surprise or size, though it isn’t always able, or determined enough, to work out that idea fully.

The story takes place in a corrupt world where American and Japanese criminal enterprises meet, and AMERICAN YAKUZA follows an FBI agent working secretly within a Yakuza family operating in the United States. The basic idea follows a typical ‘gangster’ story, with preconceived steps of going undercover, lying, escalating violence, and a morality test. What gives the film an advantage is its deliberate pacing in getting to that test. Rather than rushing to betrayal, it pauses on the appeal of belonging to a group and asks whether the rules of honor in organized crime seem more sincere than the organizations meant to fight them.

Viggo Mortensen’s acting is key to making that pressure work. It’s an early role for him, and his self-control is clear. He portrays the character as someone who is always watching, judging, and keeping things to himself, which suits the undercover situation but also creates some emotional distance. That distance is most effective when the film explores identity and inner conflict, but it can also make moments that should be more powerful or unsteady fall a little flat. Mortensen hints at that internal division rather than showing it, which is intriguing, even when it reduces the emotion.

Ryô Ishibashi, however, brings a real warmth which balances that self-control. His presence gives the Yakuza family a sense of structure and unity, which is crucial to the film’s central idea. The connection between the two men becomes the film’s emotional nucleus, not because it’s overly emotional, but because it is based on mutual respect that seems deserved rather than forced. This is where AMERICAN YAKUZA hits hardest; in the quiet moments when loyalty is shown by what people do, not what they say.

The film’s handling of organized crime is important. The Italian Mafia is portrayed as a pretty broad idea, often in a joking way, while the Yakuza is portrayed through a romanticized idea of discipline and honor. This difference isn’t likely by chance. AMERICAN YAKUZA is less interested in fairness than in creating contrast, using stark differences to explore why the main character feels increasingly cut off from his original task. This approach reduces complex groups and ideas to simple moral ones, limiting how far the film can go without falling into stereotypes.

The opening and closing scenes are executed with clarity, giving the impression of a film that knows how to deliver to the audience what they want from this type of story. The middle part relies more on conversation and establishing, but it doesn't always provide enough momentum to sustain the tension. This isn’t a question of speed so much as what the film stresses.

AMERICAN YAKUZA is most successful when it accepts doubt. The main character’s changing loyalties are never shown as purely bad or purely good. Instead, the film suggests that certainty about what is right disappears when organizations fail to provide meaning. The problem is that the script sometimes explains too much, weakening moments that might have had more force if left unsolved or unsaid.

By the time AMERICAN YAKUZA ends, it’s clear the film wants to leave the audience with an uneasy feeling, rather than just trying to shock them. The ending emphasizes what happens after something, rather than success, choosing emotional damage over winning. It might not be believable in places, but it fits the film’s basic question: What does loyalty mean when every choice you can make seems wrong?

AMERICAN YAKUZA finally comes across as a thoughtful crime story that doesn’t quite rise above its limitations. Its ideas are better than its execution, and its acting often has more intensity than the script allows. There’s honesty in what it tries to do and seriousness in its questioning, which gives it a life beyond the usual action film.

It’s a film caught between two worlds, both in its ideas and in how it was made, and while that tension isn’t always resolved, it’s rarely not interesting. Because of this, AMERICAN YAKUZA deserves its place as a respectable, middle-level crime thriller with faults, that’s sometimes uneven, but driven by questions worth asking.

Bonus Materials:
LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
2K restoration from the original camera negative by Toei Pictures
High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation
Original lossless stereo audio
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
Brand new audio commentary with director Frank Cappello and actor Anzu (Cristina) Lawson
Yakuza Style, a newly filmed interview with director Frank Cappello
Decoding Honor, an archive interview with actor Viggo Mortensen
Newly filmed interview with actor Ryo Ishibashi
Original trailer
Image gallery
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by OC Agency
Collectors’ booklet featuring new writing on the film by Patrick Macias

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[photo courtesy of ARROW VIDEO, MVD ENTERTAINMENT]

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