Sympathy for the Underdog

Sympathy for the Underdog, known in Japan as BakutoGaijin Butai ? , Outlaw GamblerForeign Legion , is a 1971 Japanese yakuza film directed and cowritten by Kinji Fukasaku and starring Koji Tsuruta and Noboru Ando. It is director Fukasakus Battles Without Honor and Humanity, Battle Royale last film featuring Koji Tsuruta. Complex named it numberon their list of TheBest Yakuza Movies. Home Vision Entertainment released the movie on DVD in North America in 2005.

Set and filmed in Okinawa, Sympathy for the Underdog has similarities to actual reallife events. It was not until several months after the film was released that America gave control of Okinawa back to the Japanese. But yakuza fled to the prefecture in the late 1960s in anticipation of the new business opportunities created once US forces withdrew. This ultimately led to the Yamaguchigumi, the largest criminal organization in the country, leading a tenyear war in Okinawa against other gangs. However, this was only just starting when the film went into production.Inspired by movies about the French Foreign Legion, and stories about people who cross national borders and ended up fighting in foreign wars, Fukasaku originally wanted to make a film about yakuza that end up in Vietnam. But stated this ultimately proved impossible. Fukusaku biographer Sadao Yamane stated that Sympathy for the Underdog was originally developed as a sequel to Japan Organized Crime Boss, a film released shortly before it and which also stars Tsuruta and Ando, until the director saw The Battle of Algiers. It was then that, Yamane thinks, Fukasaku decided to make a film about foreigners and resistance groups within a yakuza film. ........

Source: Wikipedia