Wolves, Pigs and Men (1964) poster
1964 · crime · noir · brothers

Wolves, Pigs and Men

Directed by Kinji Fukasaku1h 35m1964
ElsewhereIMDb7.5163TMDB8.17
  • heavy
  • kinetic
  • extreme
  • bleak
  • cold
Movie DNA

Heavy, breathless, extreme crime / noir, grounded in texture. Nihilistic, mid-stakes, cold, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

Sabu and his pals hold a pauper's funeral for Sabu's mother. His brother Jiro arrives home, fresh out of jail, and Sabu pointedly states that Jiro is not invited. Jiro meanwhile is planning a big job - steal 40 million in cash and drugs, and he invites Sabu and gang to act as decoys, for 50,000 each. The sting is a success, but the double-crossing starts almost immediately. Sabu discovers how little of the take they were promised and hides the stash. Jiro and his slimy partner pressure the kids to fess up. Meanwhile, their respectable elder brother Ichiro is being leaned on by the town's big boss, whose money it was.

Our read · Wolves, Pigs and Men (1964) reads as a heavy, breathless, grounded crime · noir · brothers entry — extreme in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, cold in temperature, nihilistic in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Where the cast leads
Fingerprint

The shape of Wolves, Pigs and Men

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want a brutal 1960s Japanese yakuza film of brotherly betrayal and heists.

ends unsettlingit leaves you shakena rollercoastergrips by minute 12attention 4/5earns its lengthsubtitles: full
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upgraphic violence

Skip it tonightYou dislike graphic torture or cynical crime stories.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
Your take
Rate it
star-clip-1-0star-clip-2-0star-clip-3-0star-clip-4-0star-clip-5-0
React
Discussion

Discussion

cmd enter to post

What does your Movie DNA look like?

Rate a few films you've seen. We map your taste across the same twelve axes and find the films you'll actually want to watch tonight.

Calibrate yourself