Yama – Attack to Attack

Yama – Attack to Attack is a colour documentary exposing the lives of Japanese day labourers, specifically from Tokyo’s historically impoverished Sanya district, as well as its migrant underclass from Korea and Taiwan in other Japanese cities like Kotobuki-cho in Yokohama, Sasajima in Nagoya, Kamagasaki in Osaka, Chikko in Hakata. The film follows day labourers and their material conditions, their protests, celebrations, and run-ins with the yakuza, the organised crime syndicate based in Japan. The most formidable of these run-ins with yakuza were the murders of both directors of the film, first in December 1984 Mitsuo Satō, killed by a member of the yakuza and right-wing, yakuza-affiliated group Kokusai-kai, and then Kyoichi Yamaoka, who took over after Satō’s murder and was killed one month after the premiere of the film in January 1986 also by a member of Kokusai-kai. The film has received notoriety not only for the tragic murders of its director or its remarkable solidarity to the workers it portrays but, though screenings are incredibly rare, for its ability to resonate still with audiences who see it today.