Review of American Yakuza (1993) by Jussi O — 15 Nov 2008

Where to begin... mortensen plays an fbi guy who becomes a made member of a yakuza crime family - finding the family that has eluded him all his life; consequently his loyalties become confused.

It's funny to see anti-japanese sentiment in 2008 - according to imdb this movie was made in 1993. 15 years after this movie came out the japanese are no longer the fear (now it's china). after 7 years in japan i'm more of a japanophile than a japanophobe. the story, well it's weak; the yakuza is apparently involved with gun running and is the american mafia wants them out and for some reason (anti-japan zenophobia) the fbi makes a deal with the mafia; the fbi agrees to let the mafia take out the yakuza - which leads to some john woo type shoot outs. I enjoyed this as a window into early 90's zeitgeist.