“The Yakuza” (ザ・ヤクザ), Original First-Release Japanese Movie Poster 1974, Style B, B2 Size (51 × 73 cm) P58

This is an original Japanese B2 theatrical poster printed in 1974 for the first Japanese release of The Yakuza (ザ・ヤクザ), Sidney Pollack’s hard-boiled neo-noir set in Tokyo and Kyoto, starring Robert Mitchum and Ken Takakura—two icons of screen toughness meeting at the crossroads of honour, violence, and obligation.

It’s a film with a unique cultural charge: an American crime thriller that treats Japan not as backdrop, but as a moral universe—where debts are real, reputations are permanent, and love is inseparable from consequence.

Film background
Directed by Sydney Pollack, The Yakuza follows former detective Harry Kilmer (Mitchum), drawn back to Japan to help a friend whose daughter has been kidnapped—only to become entangled in old promises, buried romance, and the brutal logic of yakuza codes. Ken Takakura delivers one of his definitive performances as Ken Tanaka, a man bound by loyalty and ritual, carrying the weight of obligation with quiet intensity.
The film’s reputation has only grown over time as one of the most stylish and serious “Japan-set” American crime pictures of the 1970s—cool, melancholy, and razor-sharp.

Poster design
This Japanese B2 is pure theatrical impact, built like a pulp-noir tableau with high drama and elegant spacing. The central image—Takakura framed by a raised shotgun—radiates stoic menace, while the foreground figure with a katana and blood-stained bandage signals the film’s collision of modern crime and traditional codes. The supporting vignettes (cars, street confrontations, and the tense human cast portrait strip) create that classic Japanese one-sheet rhythm: character, weapon, atmosphere, and stakes—all in a single frame.
The typography is bold and unmistakable: the large brush-stroke title 「ザ・ヤクザ」 across the bottom lands like a stamp of authority, while the English billing “Sidney Pollack’s THE YAKUZA” anchors it as an international prestige crime film.

Condition
Excellent. Please review the photos—they show the exact poster for sale.

It is over 50 years old!
It is not a reproduction or a reprint.
Certificate of Authenticity included.