The yakuza movie used to bestride the Japanese film industry like a colossus, but now clings to its margins. A well-known director occasionally essays the genre, as Takeshi Kitano did last year with “Outrage Coda,” but a true revival has yet to come.
Director Kazuya Shiraishi delivers more of a homage than a revamp in “The Blood of Wolves,” a cop thriller based on Yuko Yuzuki’s novel of the same Japanese title. But the film’s real inspiration, as Shiraishi himself has admitted, is “Battles Without Honor and Humanity,” a seminal 1973-74 five-part series directed by Kinji Fukasaku.
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