Looking to expand its V-Cinema brand overseas in the early ’90s through Ozla Productions, Toei entered the American market with plans to co-produce higher-end action films alongside First Look Studios under the V-America imprint. One of the two titles to emerge from that experiment, American Yakuza, starring Viggo Mortensen, has just hit Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video. Originally premiering on HBO, the film has long deserved a second look, and this release finally gives it the reappraisal it’s earned.
The story follows Nick Davis (Mortensen), an ex-con fresh out of prison who, only days into a new warehouse job, finds himself caught in the crossfire of a gang war between the Yakuza and the Mafia. When a brutal shootout erupts, Nick does what any forklift-certified employee might do: he sides with the Yakuza boss who owns his workplace, accidentally saves a high-ranking figure, and upgrades his résumé from “warehouse associate” to “Yakuza in training” in record time.
What sets American Yakuza apart from many of its early-’90s action contemporaries is its focus on an American outsider learning the codes and rituals of the Yakuza world—an angle that clearly reflects Toei’s involvement. While there are a few amusingly inconsistent pronunciations of “Yakuza” from co-stars like Robert Forster and Michael Nouri, what’s notably absent is the cultural insensitivity that often plagues similar East-meets-West action films of the era. Without that baggage, the premise plays as a spirited heroic-bloodshed hybrid, drawing just as much from John Woo’s influence as from its V-Cinema roots.
Arrow’s Blu-ray pairs the film with an eclectic and entertaining slate of extras. Highlights include a candid interview with director Frank Cappello, who discusses his path from creating intro reels for AMC Theatres to directing his first feature, as well as a casual Zoom conversation with Mortensen reflecting on the production. A director/star commentary track adds further context and is well worth the time.
The standout supplement, however, is the feature-length commentary between Cappello and co-star Anzu Lawson. Their dynamic is refreshingly candid and unexpectedly hilarious, transforming what could have been a standard retrospective into something closer to old friends catching up. It’s the kind of bonus feature you sample out of curiosity and reviewing and end up wanting to hang out with these old friends.
As an action vehicle, American Yakuza remains impressively sturdy. The narrative follows familiar genre rhythms, but its earnest tone and cultural restraint give it a surprisingly guilt-free watch today. Mortensen, still early in his career, occasionally feels outmatched by the material, yet the surrounding cast and a string of wild set pieces more than compensate. The result is a gnarly, high-energy fusion of V-Cinema stylization and American action filmmaking.
This is exactly the sort of title that could have remained a footnote, but Arrow’s release reframes it as an intriguing artifact of a unique cross-cultural experiment. If nothing else, the film delivers one of the most memorable forklift action sequences in warehouse ever committed to screen—proof that sometimes the strangest genre hybrids yield the most best results.
