This is a very fine movie, definitely worth seeing, but as much as being a good film, it tells Japanese that they can stand up and act for themselves. The Yakuza have been successful at intimidation because of the Japanese propensity to feel that something is "shikata ga nai", or there's nothing they can do about it. This movie has a final scene that shows people standing up in the face of very real threats to their safety. This is not so unusual in an American movie because, for all our collective faults, there is usually someone here who will not put up with injustice and will do something heroic to change it. This is still highly unusual in Japan, and the fact that Itami Juzo made this movie and then suffered a knife attack by Yakuza for doing so, will hopefully produce a few more heroes there.