NEVER GIVE UP

NEVER GIVE UP/
PROOF OF THE WILD
(YASEI NO SHOMEI)
Japan, 1978

Ken Takakura
Ryoko Nakano
Hiroko Yakushimaru

Directed by Junya Sato

Ken Takakura stars in the Japanese action film NEVER GIVE UP (YASEI NO SHOMEI, aka PROOF OF THE WILD). He plays Ajisawa, who is part of a top-secret military organization trying to cover-up a series of accidental murders that occurred during a training exercise. The only survivor is a young boy whom Ajisawa adopts as his own. Years later, after his retirement from the military, he finds himself forced to return to the scene of the murders to investigate the disappearance of a journalist who was looking into them. He inadvertently reveals his part in the killings, leading to his arrest and the military's decision to eliminate him, placing his adopted son in danger as well. NEVER GIVE UP is an action film about finding redemption.

Ajisawa (Ken Takakura) is a mysterious warrior in a secret Japanese paramilitary group who, while on a training exercise in the woods, stumbles into a group of rural party-makers. In the ensuing conflict he kills everyone except one young teenaged boy. The boy was wounded in the conflict, but Ajisawa adopts him and nurses him back to health. A year later, he returns to the scene of the crime in his job as a claims adjuster, investigating the death of a newswoman who was digging into the story of the woodland killings.

Police detective Kitano (Isao Natsuki) has been looking into the killings also, as well as the death of the woman. He believes that these crimes have something to do with the gangster Ochi (Ryoko Nakano), and that Ajisawa is responsible. When he arrests Ajisawa, the paramilitary group decides to execute its own man because he showed "softness" in adopting the boy. The boy and the policeman also become targets, and the three become allies in their attempts to escape death.