JAPAN: EVANGELICAL PRIEST HIROYUKI SUZUKI'S LIFE A YAKUZA GANGSTER FOR 17 YEARS IS THE BASIS OF A NEW FILM

Record ID: 391401

  • Title: JAPAN: EVANGELICAL PRIEST HIROYUKI SUZUKI'S LIFE A YAKUZA GANGSTER FOR 17 YEARS IS THE BASIS OF A NEW FILM
  • Date: 1st June 2001
  • Summary: VARIOUS, SUZUKI AND FOLLOWERS SINGING AT PRAYER MEETING (4 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 16th June 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: FUNABASHI/TOKYO, JAPAN
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: Crime,Entertainment,General,Religion
  • Reuters ID: LVAF3P7STP6MYOMS37Y6HL5VLX95
  • Story Text: Parts of his pinkies are missing and tattooed carps swim across the shoulders of reverend Hiroyuki Suzuki who was once a yakuza boss.
    But his days of violence and gambling are over now that he has found God. The ex-gangster spends his days helping other yakuza start new lives and his story has been made into a movie which is due to hit theatres soon in Japan as well as South Korea.
    Every Sunday, people from all over flock to Silolam Church on the outskirts of Tokyo to hear the sermon of the 44-year-old reverend who embraced an evangelical brand of Christianity.
    Dressed in a smart suit and tie, Suzuki addresses the motley congregation of ex-juvenile delinquents, gangsters and other troubled souls struggling to lead normal lives, peppering his sermon with anecdotes of his past life of crime.
    "He has a past just like mine. I was surprised and happy to hear of him. He came to preach at a church in Shinjuku and that's when I learned of this church and decided to come to here,"
    said ex-yakuza, Ryoichi Okuda, 40, at a recent sermon.
    Many have found salvation in his words and those of the Mission Barabbas a group of reformed crime syndicate members headed by Suzuki.
    "I had been running through life without thinking and then suddenly, I lost direction on my life. I started relying on astrology and other things and got totally confused and landed up here," said Susumu Hatakeyama, 40.
    Suzuki's life from mafia to ministry has become a movie, which is due to be released in South Korea in early July and in September in Japan.
    For years Suzuki, or Yuji Kihara in the movie, belonged to the Sakaume Gumi crime family, based in the western Japanese city of Osaka, where he ran a gambling racket.
    The tips of his pinkies are missing, hacked off in atonement to his gang leader for insubordination and to pay off gambling debts. He spent two years in jail before abandoning his ex-bar hostess Korean wife and young daughter and turning to drugs and even mulled suicide as a way of escape from his woes.
    In a moment of desperation, Suzuki stumbled into a church run by Koreans. He says he found God when he discovered that his wife, a devout Christian, had prayed every day for two years waiting for his return. From that day on, he decided that Jesus would be his boss.
    Most of Japan's 126 million people follow a mix of Buddhism and Shintoism and only about one percent are Christians.
    But a trickle of troubled people visit Suzuki in his office inside the church every day.
    Some want advice on family problems, money problems, and some are young yakuza gangsters who want to become clean.
    Suzuki listens to their woes and fears and administers liberal doses of faith healing.
    "I lived in the yakuza world for 17 years. I can't deny that sort of life, but at the same time I don't support it either.
    But there are some people who can only live in that world. They live to fulfill only their basic desires as I had," said Suzuki.
    "But if they found god, they would be able to channel all the energy they use to do bad things to do good things. It was hard for me to quit being a yakuza, but at the same time it is hard to believe in God which I can't see, but both things are not impossible," he added.
    Suzuki lends an ear to those who want to speak and a shoulder to those who need someone to lean on, but he says it is Up to the individual to make a change.
    "Through the bad things I have done and the mistakes that I have made I can tell people who are in the same position as I that they shouldn't do what they are trying to do. I have nothing to be proud of, only failures," said Suzuki.
    "But through my failures, though I may not be able to save someone, but I may be able to stop them from making the same mistakes. That is what I live for," he said.
    -----ENDS----
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