YMMV / The Yakuza

• Once Original, Now Common:
  • The many scenes explaining Yakuza rituals and their symbolism can come across as a bit redundant to modern audiences, who are already familiar with them thanks to their presence in pop culture. At the time the film came out, the Yakuza were still relatively unknown and exotic outside Japan, so the filmmakers felt obligated to explain them in great depth. The fact is, The Yakuza is one of the main reasons why the real deal are so well-known in the United States, and it spawned a whole host of imitators.
  • For a case study, compare The Yakuza to Black Rain, a similarly-themed film with released 15 years later. While the former introduces the concept of yubitsume (finger severing) with a scene of exposition, the latter simply includes and assumes the audience will already know what it is and why it's done.
• Uncertain Audience: Paul Schrader complained after the movie's financial underperformance that Pollack's direction was at fault, failing to either make the kind of dark, violent, bloody-handed crime drama about duty and honor he'd intended or the rich, transcultural romantic character piece Pollack's fanbase wanted, resulting in a movie for no one.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The fashion of the times did not age well, especially Robert Mitchum's checkerboard jacket.
• Vindicated by History: Critics at the time were savage, either complaining about all the graphic violence marring a well-acted character drama or all the slow-paced character stuff and moralizing getting in the way of the gory action, according to tastes. Gene Siskel (not Roger Ebert, who fell into the "nice drama shame about the violence" camp) was about the only major contemporary critic who was able to enjoy both sides of the film. Nowadays, when audiences are more open to films that have both slow-paced character stuff and graphic violence, it tends to be better regarded, with the worst that can be said about it being that it feels the need to explain to a 70's audience who wouldn't be familiar with Japanese criminal lore what a modern audience is probably well aware of after its massive influence.

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