Issue:
September 2022
Join the Film Committee
Join us on Tuesday, September 6 at 5:30 pm for Masato Harada’s Hell Dogs, a balls-to-the-wall yazuka-vs.-undercover-cops masterwork starring Junichi Okada and Kentaro Sakaguchi as brutal bodyguards for a psychopathic gang leader played by musical megastar Miyavi. Okada is Kanetaka, a traumatized ex-cop who spent years avenging the murder of his lover, when he’s called back into police service to infiltrate the all-powerful Toshokai yakuza organization, which is harboring top-secret files. Finding a way into the underworld via the equally cold-blooded and capable Murooka (Sakaguchi, playing convincingly against type), the two men rise at breakneck speed through the ranks, becoming elite members of the Hell Dogs unit, tasked with protecting Toshokai godfather Toake (Miyavi). But their bonds of trust are repeatedly tested with one alarming revelation after another. Harada and Miyavi will be on hand for the Q&A session. (Hell Dogs, Japan, 2022, 137 minutes, in Japanese with English subtitles).
Karen Severns is chair of the FCCJ Film Committee