[lit-ideas] The Yakuza and giri
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 22:28:18 -0800
I just watched the 1974 movie, The Yakuza. Robert Mitchum plays Harry
Kilmer, who had been a soldier in Japan during the occupation. He is shown
to have been there from about 1947 to 1951. He is living with Eiko Tanaka
(Keika Kishi) when in 1951 her brother, Ken Tanaka (Ken Takakura) one of the
island holdouts returns to Japan and is appalled that his sister is living
with a foreigner. So Eiko kicks Harry out, he returns to the U.S. and 20
years later is called back to Japan by a friend, George Tanner (Brian Keith)
who desperately needs his help in recovering his daughter who was kidnapped
by the Yakuza. Tanner wants Kilmer to ask Ken to rescue his daughter.
That paragraph may be complex for anyone who hasn't seen the movie but a
better title for the movie might be giri which means obligation or burden.
Because Kilmer rescued Eiko Tanaka, Ken Tanaka feels he owes Harry Kilmer
giri even though he doesn't like him. Ken, it turns out is a former Yakuza
and a top-hand with a Katana sword.
The daughter is rescued, some Yakuza are killed and a Yakuza boss won't be
satisfied until Harry Kilmer is killed. His former friend, Tanner, turns
out to be a thorough-going rat who puts out the hit on Kilmer. As Ken
Tanaka and Harry Kilmer fight against Tanner and Tomo's crime syndicate,
they bond. Toward the end of the movie Harry Kilmer learns the secret that
caused Eiko to send him away 20 years ago. Ken Tanaka isn't her brother.
He's her husband. He can't forgive her for living with Harry and she can no
longer live with Harry because she is rightfully Ken's wife. She feels giri
as well.
Ken has an older brother Goro (James Shigeta) who helps the Tanner and
Tanaka as they are getting ready to fight against the Yakuza and asks Ken
but one thing: don't kill his son. His son dropped out of college to work
for Tomo. Ken Tanaka is told he can recognize him by the spider tattooed on
his head. But in the big battle, Tanaka kills his nephew anyway because he
recognizes him as one of the key men in a raid that ended up killing
Tanaka's (and Eiko's) daughter.
Now the brother, Goro, is quite willing to forgive Ken for having killed his
son, but forgiveness is not a simple matter of words in Japan, especially
not in the Yakuza. Even though Goro attempts to stop him, Ken cuts off the
end joint of the little finger of his left hand and offers it to his brother
as a "token" of his request for forgiveness; which means that he is
demonstrating the genuineness of his request for forgiveness. Kilmer
witnesses this and is appalled, but on his way to the airport to fly back to
the U.S. he realizes that he was the cause of ruining the happiness of Ken
and Eiko Tanaka. He didn't know this at the time. He didn't do it
deliberately, but he did it nonetheless; so he tells his taxi-driver to turn
them around. He goes back to Ken Tanaka's apartment, confesses that he has
been the cause of Ken's great unhappiness, even to the ruining of the lives
of Ken and Eiko Tanaka. Kilmer begs forgiveness and cuts off the final
joint of the little finger of his left hand as a "token" of the genuineness
of his request. Ken is impressed and accepts the token. Kilmer asks that
this token cover Eiko as well. In other words that Ken forgive her and
accept her back as his wife. Presumably he will after Harry flies back to
the states.
This film has done very well over the years, especially in France. The
director, Sydney Pollack said that Americans had a lot of trouble with the
idea of Mitchum cutting off part of one of his fingers. They couldn't take
that in. The French, on the other hand, had no trouble with it.
Presumably the Japanese didn't either. I don't know what this means, but
I didn't have a problem with it either. It seemed fitting. Could Harry
Kilmer have any less honor, giri, than Ken Tanaka? Certainly not.
After watching the movie, I watched it a second time with the commentary.
Pollack says that in the West we have been influenced (by Christianity) to
accept a heartfelt request for forgiveness as sufficient. In Japan, though,
that isn't sufficient. If you hurt someone, it will only be sufficient if
you hurt yourself. Anything less is empty words. The Yakuza go further
than any other Japanese group in their willingness to hurt themselves, and
Pollack doesn't explain what sort of self-hurting the non-Yakuza engage in,
but this brings up an interesting aspect about Western Civilization. Indeed
it is a Christian principle that a request for forgiveness by a Christian
must perforce be accepted as sufficient by another Christian. If we are
Christian and a fellow Christian injures us and asks forgiveness we must
honor that request unless we have good reason for suspecting it as not being
genuine. But,
What about the Westerners who reject Christianity. They don't realize it or
else they deny it, but they have accepted that Christian principle. We
Christians accept this principle because Jesus has commanded us to forgive
others just as our Heavenly Father forgives us, but what of the
non-Christians? Geary, for example, has rejected his Catholicism and yet
probably hasn't rejected this Christian principle, but upon what basis does
he not reject this Christian principle. In other words, shouldn't he be
moving closer to a non-Christian approach? Since hollow requests for
forgiveness, since a mere saying "I'm sorry," can't include the Christian
sense of this request for a non-Christian, shouldn't Geary demonstrate his
request more tangibly if he ever injures someone to the extent that he
wishes their forgiveness? I'm not suggesting that Geary cut off part of
his little finger, but that would certainly do it. Don't you think?
Lawrence Helm
San Jacinto
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