New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: The Complete Trilogy Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: The Complete Trilogy Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 28, 2017

When is a franchise not a franchise? In the case of Kinji Fukusaku’s Battles Without Honor and Humanity: The Complete Collection, it’s when studio bigwigs aren’t content to leave well enough alone and keep commissioning sequels even after the story has supposedly been told. As Fukusaku biographer Sadao Yamane details in one of the supplements included in this new three disc set, while the New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: The Complete Trilogy can themselves be seen as unconnected “sequels” that are in fact sequels in name only, that particular tendency arguably started earlier with the original Battles Without Honor and Humanity, which Yamane suggests really “ended” sooner than the initial quintet’s supposed organic wholeness might indicate. As I mentioned in our Battles Without Honor and Humanity Blu-ray review, Fukusaku’s name might not be that familiar to those outside of the Asian film fan community, even though he helmed the Japanese portions of the gigantic 1970 international co- production Tora! Tora! Tora!. In Japan, though, his contributions to the yakuza genre with the original Battles Without Honor and Humanity were perhaps unexpectedly huge hits in their day in their native country, something that of course sparked the interest in sequels to begin with. The original quintet brought a new quasi-historical aspect to Japanese crime sagas, something that Fukusaku attempts to continue in a similar approach with the secondary trilogy, though it’s at least questionable as to whether the New Battles Without Honor and Humanity really maintain the same level of visceral impact that the original pentalogy did. It’s also worth noting that Fukusaku, working with some new writers unaffiliated with the original five films, discards any real linking devices to those first five films, other than the fact that (probably for marketing purposes as much as anything else) he utilizes many of the same actors from the original series (in new, unrelated, roles).

Reviews of the three films in this set can be accessed by clicking on the following links:

New Battles Without Honor and Humanity Blu-ray review

New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: The Boss' Head Blu-ray review

New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Last Days of the Boss Blu-ray review

New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: The Complete Trilogy Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Video quality of each release is assessed in the above linked reviews.

New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: The Complete Trilogy Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Audio quality of each release is assessed in the above linked reviews.

New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: The Complete Trilogy Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Supplements included on each disc are detailed in the above linked reviews. Note that several of the supplements are not tied to whatever film they're included with and are more generalist in nature. As is the norm for Arrow releases, this comes very handsomely packaged in a sturdy slipcase which also includes a booklet with writing, stills and information on the transfers.

New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: The Complete Trilogy Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's no getting around the fact that probably unavoidably these three films seem like at least somewhat anemic retreads of stories, ideas and even character types that have gone before. Still, nobody stages action quite like Fukasaku, and all three of these films have his peripatetic camera moves and manic editing style, something that may help to momentarily distract from other, more rote, elements. Technical merits are decent if never completely impressive, and as usual Arrow has packaged this set handsomely, with a well appointed booklet.