A group of elite samurai are secretly enlisted to bring down a sadistic lord.

In this action thriller, a dirty cop is forced to choose between the police and his yakuza buddies when a new boss arrives in his precinct. Considered by many to be director Kinji Fukasaku's greatest single-film achievement in the yakuza genre, COPS VS THUGS was made at the height of popularity of Toei Studios' jitsuroku boom, which fostered a bevy of realistic, modern crime movies based on true stories taken from contemporary headlines.

Sixty-one years ago, the United States and Japanese armies met on Iwo Jima. Decades later, hundreds of letters are unearthed from that stark island's soil. The letters give faces and voices to the men who fought there, as well as the extraordinary general who led them. Leading the defense is Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi. With little defense other than sheer will and the volcanic rock of the island itself, Gen. Kuribayashi's unprecedented tactics...