Hell Dogs: In The House of Bamboo - Gritty Japanese Thriller Based on Novel by Akio Fukamachi

Of all the new releases in Netflix yesterday, this one caught my attention as it seemed like a gritty movie with an interesting plot. Plus I was also familiar the main stars of this Japanese movie. So I decided to watch this one ahead of other options. OK let us get to it then.

Brief Story Line

Goko Idezuki (Junichi Okada - The Fable: The Killer Who Doesn't Kill, Memory etc), was a former police officer who was assigned to work undercover in the Yakuza. In order to infiltrate, he had to approach one of the Yakuza member Muro (Kentaro Sakaguchi - Signal: Long-Term Unsolved Case Investigation Team, The Last 10 Years etc) who was said to be compatible with Goro and part of an elite group called Hell Dogs. 

But his ultimate goal was to bring down the organization, starting with their direct boss Tsutomi Toki (Kazuki Kitamura - Folklore, Kera TV series etc) and ultimately the leader Toake (Miyavi - Kate etc).

During his investigation, Goko now nicknamed as Tak had to undergo a lot of tests for his loyalty where he had to do various illegal stuff and avoid being identified as undercover agent.

So how would the story conclude? You can find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

I said above that I was intrigued by the premise of the mission to infiltrate an organized crime which reminded me of quite a number of movies with such plot (best that come to mind would definitely be Infernal Affairs though that one was very intricate and unique at the time). The early part of this movie seemed to be a bit irrelevant, but apparently it was to give proper context of the main character Goko Idezuki. Subsequently the story jumped to the time where he was already part of the Yakuza and became close to Muro. 

What came after that was the story of how Tak and Muro slowly up their rank and gain more respect in the organization. However, I really had a hard time to follow it due to a lot of parties involved. I felt that this movie required full concentration to properly understand the whole story and unfortunately I might be losing a bit of focus in the middle. Luckily after more than half, there were some thrilling action sequence that drew me to re-focus on the movie. Oh and there was a scene involving Muro and his friends that really made things complicated and made it more intense.

There were also few plot twists in here that I did not see coming but did not really surprise me. For a movie that has duration of 2 hours 18 minutes, this one might feel very long, though I could understand as it had plenty of story to tell. In fact, I think this film was more like a crime drama with a bit of action, rather than an action thriller. The actions that were exciting was the one in the middle and in the finale. Oh btw, the ending was quite satisfying for me and that final scene before closing credit was a nice touch.

The main attraction in this movie I believed would be the strong performance of the lead cast Junichi Okada and Kentaro Sakaguchi. I did not even recognize Okada with his full beard but he looked perfect as the tough guy Tak while Sakaguchi was convincing as a young Yakuza member eager to make an impact. Aside from the names I mentioned above, there were also few other support cast such as Mayu Matsuoka (One Night, Shoplifters etc) as Toki's lover Emiri, Yoshi Sakou (Detective Chinatown 3 etc) as Goko's handler, Mitsuo Yoshihara (Mirai etc) as one of Yakuza leader Nobuo and few others. 

I noticed in the opening credit that the movie was based on the 2017 novel by Akio Fukamachi titled Hell Dogs. It was written and directed by Masato Harada who previously directed Sekigahara, The Emperor in August and few others. He even had acting roles in The Last Samurai (starring Tom Cruise) and Fearless (starring Jet Li). As director and writer, he had got some nominations and awards in the Japanese film industry, so he looked like a good choice for this kind of rather heavy movie.

As a film that focused on the story of person undercover in the criminal organization with some drama about his life adaptation and friendship with one of the member, this one was quite OK. I am pretty sure that the movie would be enjoyed by audience who like this kind of genre. For me personally though, despite having few suspenseful action sequence and one or two intense moments, but due to rather complicated story which involved many characters that required full concentration, it did not give me the best of experience. So if you like gritty drama thriller such as this, most likely you would enjoy it. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars