“This film is distinguished by an unusually detailed account of the process of incurring an obligation on which so much of the Yakuza film plots depend: during the Korean War, a spunky street urchin is picked up by a longshoreman boss who raises him as his own. The boy sees his adoptive father murdered and shoots the killer at his trial. At sixteen, the boy is boss of his own gang and serving time in prison for murder. When finally released, he tries to rebuild his ‘union,' but is sent to Tokyo for his own protection.”