Cops vs. Thugs

is a 1975 Japanese yakuza film directed by Kinji Fukasaku. It won two Blue Ribbon Awards in 1976: Best Director (Fukasaku) and Best Actor (Sugawara). Complex named it number 6 on their list of The 25 Best Yakuza Movies. Kino International released the film on DVD in North America in 2006. Plot In the year 1963, in the fictional city of Kurashima, two yakuza gangs, once sub gangs for a more powerful family are competing for control of the city. They are the formerly Osaka-based Kawade family under Kasumi Kawade, and the Ohara family, under acting boss Kenji Hirotani. The former are allied to ex-boss and current city councilman Masaichi Tomoyasu; the latter have an alliance with the local police force. After Ohara men raid one of Tomoyasu's bars for a hostess who worked for Hirotani before changing patrons and assigning the blame on a selected Ohara member, Detective Tokomatsu Kuno obtains information on an illegal land auction deal involving the Kawade, Tomoyasu, and the local oil company, Nikko Oil. Acting on this information, Hirotani leaks details of the deal. The land auction is put on hold, and Hirotani manages to gain control of it. He offers to sell it back to Nikko Oil executive Kubo for a price, but the latter refuses. Elsewhere, Ohara members and their police friends get into a fight with a truck driver, who is revealed to have been working for Kawade. He uses this a pretext for an all-out gang war against Hirotani. With the war in full swing, Kawade, Tomoyasu, and Kubo meet with Police Commissioner Kikkuchi. Kikkuchi has crusading Lieutenant Shoichi Kaida assigned to lead the crackdown against the Ohara family. Kaida sets about ordering the officers - Kuno included - to stop fraternizing with the yakuza, and makes his point by smashing bottles of sake Hirotani had sent to the police one night. Yoshihura, one of the officers under Tomoyasu's payroll, gets into a fight with Kaida, resigns, and joins Tomoyasu's law office.