Brothers are a common feature of film noir, two or more sons of a put-upon mother or wayward father making their ways through life with varying degrees of criminal inclination and moral integrity. The test of brotherly bonds injects the pathos into some of the most moving films of the cycle, such as Force of Evil (1948), House of Strangers (1949), Rocco and His Brothers (1960), Shoot the Piano Player (1960), and so many more. Blood, however, is not thicker than water in Kinji Fukasaku’s Ôkami to buta to ningen (US: Wolves, Pigs, and Men), a tale of three slum-raised brothers who get sucked in to the postwar yakuza boom: eldest Kuroki (Rentarō Mikuni), who has long abandoned the family for organized crime; middle brother Jirō (Ken Takakura), another yakuza recently released from prison; and youngest Sabu (Kin’ya Kitaōji), abandoned to care for their dying mother and the most popular member of a local gang which at times breaks into spontaneous singing, chanting, and running through landfills and shantytown, at one point chasing stray dogs with clubs. (The loyalty among Sabu and his friends starkly contrasts the treachery among the brothers.) When Jirō and Sabu participate in a heist of the Iwasaki Group that turns up a double cross, the story shifts to murder, kidnapping, relentless torture, and a lot of screaming. Sharing some of the chaos and nihilism of Shohei Imamura’s Pigs and Battleships (1961), which could be considered a companion piece, the film is intense, a bit crazed, and emblematic of a chaotic style in early 60’s Japanese crime films, extensive use of Dutch angles and rapid cutting alternating with moments of slick noir aesthetics.