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Boss of the Underworld (暗黒街の顔役, Ankoku-gai no kaoyaku), also known as The Big Boss, is a 1959 Japanese crime thriller film directed by Kihachi Okamoto^[1] as part of the second installment of the Ankokugai series (暗黒街シリーズ, Underworld Series).

The Underworld Series were a very loose series of action pictures made by Toho in the manner of Nikkatsu’s “borderless action” movies. Depending on how you count, The Big Boss is the second chapter in the series, and the first of three directed by Kihachi Okamoto. All three of Okamoto’s movies were built around Koji Tsuruta, who had also starred in a 1956 movie called The Underworld, but he plays an ostensibly different character in each, so they are not a series in the way that the Zatoichi or Abashiri Prison films were.

As with so many of the similar Nikkatsu films, this seems to exist only in Movieland, with a script that is a mish-mash of half a dozen Hollywood gangster movies.^[2] Tsuruta runs a nightclub for yakuza boss Seizaburo Kawazu, who must have played more bosses and sleazy officials than any other actor in Japan, and Tsuruta’s little brother (Akira Takarada) sings at the club in hopes of becoming a major pop star. Takarada drives a get-away car but the big boss doesn’t really trust him and puts a hitman on his trail, just in case he decides to go straight. Tsuruta has to protect him, but to amp up the melodrama, has a kid of his own, who is not only sick but also limps.  Eventually a big shoot-out brings it all to a close, with a final burning car crash.^[3]

At the Bank of Japan, a financial employee named Nishiwaki was assassinated by an unknown hitmen and they drove off by car. The girl who work at the cafeteria witness the murder and reported it to the Tokyo Police Department. Yakuza gangster Ryuta Komatsu was ordered by his boss Yokomitsu, leader of the Yoshimitsu Crime Family, to stop his younger brother, Mineo, from appearing in a jazz club as a stage singer. Ryuta was an executive of the Yokomitsu Family who eats food with violence, and his younger brother Mineo was one of them as a member, but after falling in love with his stubborn daughter Yoko, he decided to quit the family and become a singer to pursue his music career.

However, the killing of President Nishiwaki was staged by the Yokomitsu Family, and Mineo, who worked as a hitman, was not allowed to stand out on the murder case. At a Children Amusement Park, Ryuta tells Mineo to quit his music career and return to the family, but Mineo refused and not wanted to get involved with killing another innocent people. Kurosaki, the underboss who had been burning a sense of opposition to Ryuta for a long time, tried to kick Ryuta out of the family by telling false information on Yokomitsu about the two brothers planning on ratting them out to the police.

So Kurosaki invites Mineo at the Kashimura Auto Repair Shop, but Mineo escapes the difficulty after he learns that Yokomitsu send his men to kill him. The owner of the repair shop, Daisuke Kashimura, was always in use because Yokomitsu had just given him money. On the other hand, Ryuta asks Mineo to give up the singer again, but Mineo still refused to return. Ryuta once had a mistress, and Shinichi, the child left by the woman, was hospitalized in Aiiku Hospital after he was diagnosed with polio. He asked senior executive Sudo to save his younger brother in case of emergency. Eventually, Mineo was discovered by Kanako, a cafe lady who witnessed the killing, while singing in front of audience.

Knowing this, Yokomitsu send Kurosaki and his goons to kill Kanako, but Mineo managed to escape and gave information to the authority. The police gave him a medal for bravery and protected him. Ryuta reunited with Mineo and with Yoko's help, they must stop the Yoshimitsu Family (who had collaborated with the Costello Mafia). The danger has come over Ryuta. Kurosaki kidnapped Shinichi from the hospital and urged Mineo to killed the child or his friends will be dead. Ryuta obeyed without stopping. The showdown was decided to take place was at the Kashimura Auto Repair Shop.

Ryuta hung a rope on Sudo, but Yokomitsu's mistress Rie came to inform him that he had fallen in revenge for a group of Sicilian Mafia who had attacked him before. Ryuta confronted Kurosaki by protecting Mineo when he refused to kill his younger brother. At this time, Goro, who worked as advisor for Yokomitsu, turned over for Ryuta, which turned the auto shop into a shrine. Ryuta is finally in trouble. Kashimura put all his anger into it and made a promise to Yokomitsu with an electric drill in one hand. As the police arrived to arrest them, the gang escape by car and during the chase, Mineo contact the police to block the road. The car skeeted out of control and crash into a tack of gasoline cans before it was exploded

However, Ryuta sacrificed himself by taking a bullet to the chest from Kurosaki, who tries to kill Mineo and Yoko. He dies in front of his younger brother and told him to gave the money for Shinichi's medical bills. Mineo and Yoko took Shinichi to hospital, promising Ryuta's spirit, who dies as a hero from evil doers.

• Koji Tsuruta as Ryuta Komatsu
• Akira Takarada as Mineo Komatsu
• Toshiro Mifune as Daisuke Kashimura
• Yumi Shirakawa as Junko Kikumura
• Mitsuko Kusabue as Rie
• Keiko Yanagawa as Yōko
• Rumiko Sasa as Kanako
• Seizaburo Kawazu as Yokomitsu
• Akihiko Hirata as Sudo
• Haruo Tanaka as Kurosaki
• Makoto Sato as Goro
• Yutaka Nakayama as Duke of Utah (Kō Yuta)
• Nadao Kirino as Duke of Bata (Kō Bata)
• Ren Yamamoto as Ken
• Koji Iwamoto as Masa
• Mickey Curtis as Tatsu
• Yosuke Natsuki as Sei
• Sachio Sakai as Ichimura
• Shoichi Hirose as Narumi
• Hiroshi Takagi as Hirano
• Akira Sera as Detective Murakami
• Tadao Nakamaru as Detective Shimomatsu
• Kokuten Kōdō as Ishiyama's father
• Ikio Sawamura as Amagishi
• Hideyo Amamoto as Oyama
• Sonomi Nakajima as Harumi Aoyagi
• Michiyo Yokoyama as Tomie
• Rumiko Sasa as Kanako
• Noriko Honma as Aunt Noto
• Haruya Katô as Fubo
• Shin Otomo as financial employee Nishiwaki
• Yuriko Hoshi as Kana
• Koji Uno as Bikko Mimura
• Kaji Ichikawa as Shinichi Komatsu

• Akio Kusama as Customer at the casino bar (uncredited)
• Haruo Nakajima as Friendly customer in Children Amusement Park (uncredited)