Yakuza no hakaba: Kuchinashi no hana

Watched this fairly late on a Friday night, so I'll keep this review brief, because bed is calling out to me.

I've been really into yakuza films lately, as I like crime films and I really dig Japanese cinema, and the yakuza sub-genre quite naturally combines the two. The thing I liked most about this particular one was its unique take on the "undercover cop infiltrating a criminal gang" premise.

In it, the central protagonist (the undercover cop) gets friendly with a gang, and they know pretty quickly where he's from. So the conflict isn't about whether or not he'll get found out; it's more about finding out on which side of the law his intentions truly lie (if he has any strong feelings one way or the other), and later, conflict arises when the police get angry at him for seeming to enjoy his interactions with the yakuza too much.

It's got a great premise and a strong opening half-hour. It's also really well-filmed throughout, with some great, frantic camerawork, and all the performances are solid. But it did get a bit too messy for my liking, with a plot that could have gone in numerous interesting directions, but didn't really seem to commit to one solidly enough. Maybe this was intended to mirror the feelings of the main character... or it could've been that the writing of the screenplay was just a bit rushed. I guess I'll never know for sure...