Nobody Knows, Graveyard of Honor, & Graveyard of Honor

Nobody Knows is a depressing film about a group of children who are abandoned by their mom and how they have to survive with the oldest being only 12. I cannot express how sad this film is. It is based on a true story, which just hurt all the more. Hirokazu Koreeda, who also directed Maborosi and Afterlife, gets good performances from the kids, but I do sort of wish it wasn't so heartbreaking.

Graveyard of Honor is a 1975 film by Kinji Fukasaku which was remade in 2002 by Takashi Miike. I watched both. Fukasaku's version is slightly better, as it's less bloated. They're both about a yakuza who struggles to be a not huge dick and getting every yakuza family pissed at him. He fails, and eventually has to fight both his family and other families, along with the cops. Watching these back to back was a little annoying, because he was just ridiculously stupid and overreacting. The Miike film just went on a little long. Fukusaku's film is actually similar to the Yakuza Papers films, firmly placing the story in a historical context, which adds a lot of texture to the film.