BATTLES WITHOUT HONOR AND HUMANITY 3: PROXY WAR

Moving beyond the true stories dramatized in the first two episodes, director Kinji Fukasaku and screenwriter Kazuo Kasahara embarked on their most complex narrative yet: a multi-character web of alliances and betrayals set against Japan’s preparation for the 1964 Summer Olympics.

1960. A power vacuum is formed within the Muraoka family when underboss Uchimoto refuses to avenge the assassination of a superior. With the help of series hero Shozo Hirono (Bunta Sugawara), Uchimoto pledges loyalty to the powerful Akashi gang, and the enmity between the two camps threatens to erupt across all of western Japan.

PROXY WAR’s labyrinthine plotline -- which continues in Part Four, POLICE TACTICS -- approaches pure Jacobean drama as power players, kingmakers, and petty soldiers clash weapons and words in a stylized ritual of alliances and betrayals. Considered by many critics to be the series’ best episode.