The Beautiful World of Nikkatsu Action (1954-1971)

[Maito Guy Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Maito Guy]

Youth/Love Films and Literature Adaptions
As stated previously most of Akira's early output consisted of non-action films. Most belong to the genre of youth/love films featuring older women who, I suppose, fall in love with the young Akira, some of them are based on books and therefore could be counted to the early literature adaptions Nikkatsu made.

We start with ADVENTURE OF YOUTH (Seishun no boken; 1957, Ren Yoshimura), Akira's first appearance in a bigger role.



The next one he appeared in was FOURTH YEAR OF HIGH SCHOLL (Koukou yonen; 1957, Kenjiro Morinaga).



After that he seems to have appeared in WHITE DEVIL (Shiroi akuma; 1958, Saito Buichi). The first time he starred under the direction of one of the creators of the WANDERING GUITARIST series, Saito Buichi.



The next one features him alongside Izumi Ashikawa who is starring as the BEAUTIFUL PRIESTESS (Utsukushii anjusan; 1958, Katsumi Nishikawa).



He also appeared in two movies directed by Seijun Suzuki. The first one being SLIP UPPED SPRING (Fumihazushita haru; 1958, Seijun Suzuki).



The second one is called BLUE BREAST (Aoi chibusa; 1958, Seijun Suzuki).



Around the same time he also appeared in THE SEASUN OF ANGELS AND DEVILS (Akuma to tenshi no kisetsu; 1958, Kiyoshi Horiike).



And last but not least top-billed together with Ruriko Asaoka in the literary adaption BEAUTIFUL POEM (Zesshou; 1958, Eisuke Takizawa), which I think got remade two more times in the 60ies and 70ies.



Needless to say none of these got a release on DVD. A few of them seem to have gotten a VHS release but usually are hard to find nowadays. Would love to see the Suzuki ones and BEAUTIFUL POEM featuring him alongside Ruriko Asaoka.

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Early Action Roles

Out of his early output only four movies fall into the category of Action films. If you want you could also count his role alongside Yujiro in RUSTY KNIFE, then it would be five movies. I have only seen one of them (RUSTY KNIFE not counted), but I think it's fair to assume that in none of those many traits of Akira's future film self can be seen.

The first one is NINE PRISONERS (Kyuunin no shikeiin; 1957, Takumi Furukawa).



After that he appeared in SECOND STREET IN A FOGGY NIGHT (Yogiri no dai ni kokudo; 1958, Toshio Masuda). This features him top-billed but seems to only be one of these early shorter B-movies with absolute minimal budget.



The next one was MAN IN THE FOG (Kiri no naka no otoko; 1958, Kurahara Koreyoshi).



The last one remaining is THE PERFECT GAME (Kanzen na yugi; 1958, Toshio Masuda).



I will talk in detail about the last one in my very next post. It's one of those early Nikkatsu masterpieces. It could be considered the last "Sun Tribe" film and features Akira in a somewhat similar role to his later screen image (or at least one can see a kind of early development).

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Out of Akira's early action output, that NINE PRISONERS looks kinda dope. He has a crazed expression behind bars. I like to see more Furukawa as I've only caught his CRUEL GUN STORY and SEASON OF THE SUN sans subs. I did also see the one he did for Shaw Brothers called BLACK FALCON and it was alright for the 007 HK rip offs of the time but not especially noteworthy.

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Out of Akira's early action output, that NINE PRISONERS looks kinda dope. He has a crazed expression behind bars. I like to see more Furukawa as I've only caught his CRUEL GUN STORY and SEASON OF THE SUN sans subs. I did also see the one he did for Shaw Brothers called BLACK FALCON and it was alright for the 007 HK rip offs of the time but not especially noteworthy.

CRUEL GUN STORY is great. It's kind of sad that Shishido played this hardboiled action hero/professional killer role in just so few movies. Would've loved to see more of those.

The only other Furukawa movie I've seen is HUMAN TORPEDO (Ningen gyorai sutsugekisu, 1956) a 2nd world war drama about the kamikaze torpedo troups. It features Yujiro Ishihara in one of his earliest roles. I remember it being kind of ok, but I'm just a sucker for Japanese war films, so this was definitely not my kind of film.

Hopes are low but I'd love to see more of the early Nikkatsu stuff and in general more Akira Kobayashi movies getting released.

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Finally came across watching the only film out of the 2nd DIAMOND GUYS volume, I've not seen before.

Murder Unincorporated (Dai nihon koroshiya-den; 25.8.1965, Harayasu Noguchi)

I wasn't to keen on watching this one since I already disliked the trailer very much. It let the movie look like an episodic arrangement of gags featuring more or less famous TV actors or actors from other studios alongside Nikkatsu actors. Sadly I've to say that it actually delivered on what was promised in the trailer.

I was giggling two or three times throughout the whole runtime, but don't think there were many good gags in it overall. I much more prefer DANGER PAYS and also TOKYO MIGHTY GUY out of this set. Shishido, while playing a central part within the story, doesn't really have to do anything up until the very end. That said, in the few moments at the end in which he plays his hardboiled killer type of character, he is absolutely brilliant. I also enjoyed a few other side players, especially Takashina Kaku who is a pleasure in every movie he appears in.

I think that Arrow was aiming to deliver something completely new to the West with this 2nd volume and I think they actually succeed in showing that there is still so much more undiscovered stuff remaining, but I would have preferred if they actually had chosen better movies to do so. The essays in the booklet seem to go pretty much into detail with every movie and seem definitely worth reading (I've just skimmed through them a bit but want to read them thoroughly later).


These to guys had some of the few funny moments in the film.


Takashina Kaku, one of the most unique Nikkatsu by players at the time.


Shishido Jo shining as the hardboiled professional killer he played in way to less movies. Unfortunately restricted to the last 5-10 minutes only.

Franky the Milkman (Gyuunyuuya frankii; 5.12.1956, Ko Nakahira)

Also watched this earlier comedy featuring Franky Sakai who also appeared in BAKUMATSU TAIYO-DEN by Kawashima Yuzo as the main character. Since he was absolutely brilliant in that one and I like quite a number of other Ko Nakahira movies I decided to order this one. Unfortunately it was pretty forgettable. Franky plays a clumsy milkman who comes to Tokyo to start work at a small local milk delivery company. The film then accompanies Franky while he delivers his milk to various households. Every delivery is more or less just there for a gag. There evolves an overlaying story out of these but it's not worth mentioning.

Franky Sakai is quite good as this clumsy but loveable character, but can't really follow up his great performance from BAKUMATSU TAIYO-DEN. There are a few funny scenes in the movie but overall there isn't much to like in this one. Pretty forgettable average daily bread kind of work, as often with Japanese program pictures (but due to this the great movies can shine even more).




Shishido Jo in one of his early roles before getting his cheeks operated.

[47lab Guest Find all posts View Profile Close 47lab]

CRUEL GUN STORY is great. It's kind of sad that Shishido played this hardboiled action hero/professional killer role in just so few movies. Would've loved to see more of those.

The only other Furukawa movie I've seen is HUMAN TORPEDO (Ningen gyorai sutsugekisu, 1956) a 2nd world war drama about the kamikaze torpedo troups. It features Yujiro Ishihara in one of his earliest roles. I remember it being kind of ok, but I'm just a sucker for Japanese war films, so this was definitely not my kind of film.

Hopes are low but I'd love to see more of the early Nikkatsu stuff and in general more Akira Kobayashi movies getting released.

I thought I had seen that HUMAN TORPEDO movie before and re-checked my file earlier but it was a completely different "kaiten" film altogether. *doh* This one featured Sonny Chiba and Juzo Itami. Btw on the topic, do you have any recommendations for good Japanese war films? Have you seen any recent ones such as THE ETERNAL ZERO?

As mentioned before, not really a fan of Ishihara but I recently re-watched Ichikawa's ALONE IN THE PACIFIC and he was solid and not overly hammy in that one. I agree with you about MURDER UNINCORPORATED -- I felt it was the weakest of the 3 films presented in that Arrow box set. The only part that piqued my interest were the "hitman" auditions and I wish they explored the backstory of the assassins more as they were some weird characters! Now I know the name of that one character actor with the unique look...Takashina Kaku.

yeah, I need to see SUN IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE SHOGUNATE again. You're right, Frankie Sakai was absolutely brilliant as the con man with a conscience. I wish more of Yuzo Kawashima's works were available in English. I have quite a few films of his but unfortunately, only a handful of titles that are subbed.

[Maito Guy Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Maito Guy]

I thought I had seen that HUMAN TORPEDO movie before and re-checked my file earlier but it was a completely different "kaiten" film altogether. *doh* This one featured Sonny Chiba and Juzo Itami. Btw on the topic, do you have any recommendations for good Japanese war films? Have you seen any recent ones such as THE ETERNAL ZERO?

Sorry, guess I can't help you much on this one. I've seen a few of the big classics. Somehow only can recall THE HUMAN CONDITION right now, which I'd give a recommendation, but I wouldn't want to watch it again.

From Nikkatsu during that era I've seen MONUMENT TO THE GIRLS' CORPS (Aa hime yuri no to; 1968, Toshio Masuda) featuring Yoshinaga Sayuri. As usually well-directed by Masuda and quite a tear-jerker. I also positively recall THE FLAME OF DEVOTION (Shuen; 1964, Koreyoshi Kurahara), one of his strong films featuring Ruriko Asaoka during the mid 60ies. There are also a few other ones featuring Yujiro Ishihara. The best one would be THE ZERO FIGHTER (Zerosen kurokumo ikka; 1962, Toshio Masuda). Great direction with really convincing special effects for the period and suspenseful action scenes. Definitely the most fun out of the three I mentioned here.

I have kind of high expectations for STORY OF A PROSTITUTE by Seijun Suzuki and the MEN AND WAR trilogy which got shot during the early 70ies. I also have a copy of THE BURMESE HARP here which I want to checkout soon.

As mentioned before, not really a fan of Ishihara but I recently re-watched Ichikawa's ALONE IN THE PACIFIC and he was solid and not overly hammy in that one. I agree with you about MURDER UNINCORPORATED -- I felt it was the weakest of the 3 films presented in that Arrow box set. The only part that piqued my interest were the "hitman" auditions and I wish they explored the backstory of the assassins more as they were some weird characters! Now I know the name of that one character actor with the unique look...Takashina Kaku.

ALONE IN THE PACIFIC is one of the earliest movies Yujiro tried to "destroy" the image created by the usual roles he had to play at Nikkatsu at the time. I also remember quite enjoying it.

Definitely have an eye out for Takashina Kaku. He appears in many Nikkatsu Action classics and is always fun to watch, even in otherwise forgettable movies. These great side actors make out so much of the fun of Nikkatsu Action in my opinion.

yeah, I need to see SUN IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE SHOGUNATE again. You're right, Frankie Sakai was absolutely brilliant as the con man with a conscience. I wish more of Yuzo Kawashima's works were available in English. I have quite a few films of his but unfortunately, only a handful of titles that are subbed.

I still haven't seen any role where he came close to his performance in SUN IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE SHOGUNATE. That said, much of his output isn't even released in Japan yet, so I still have high hopes to find some gems in the future.

I've seen a few other films from Yuzo Kawashima and every single one was really good in my opinion: WOMEN ARE BORN TWICE, THE TEMPLE OF THE WILD GEESE, THE GRACEFUL BRUTE and SUSAKI PARADISE: THE RED LIGHT DISTRICT. I have a few others here from his Nikkatsu days which I want to checkout in future. If I finally find time to do so I'll of course post about them here in this thread

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Part 11: Realization of one's own Ideals

The Perfect Game (Kanzen na yugi; 11.11.1958, Toshio Masuda)

Director Masuda Toshio was not only very influential regarding Yujiro's early developments, but also helped making Akira the action star of his later years. First glimpses of his later screen self can be traced back to THE PERFECT GAME, which kind of functions for Akira the same way CRAZED FRUIT functioned for Yujiro. It's once again based on a story by Yujiro's brother and later Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, about the wild life of the Japanese youth.

The first half starts out as a kind of heist thriller with our group of young students trying to cheat at a backstreet Yakuza betting office for horse races. Masuda's direction is top notch throughout the whole film but really comes to shine in the beginning with setting up the characters, plot and details of the plan of our group of anti-heroes. He also succeeds in setting up a nihilistic atmosphere which is tangible throughout the whole movie. In this first half Akira is just one member of our group of anti-heroes but with the story developing and taking a few unexpected turns he ends up being much of the focus of the second half, even with a small love story evolving between him and Izumi Ashikawa.

Akira fits this nihilistic image, which most likely was already present in the base material provided by Shintaro Ishihara much more than Yujiro. His development as a character makes sense and tops the movie with a great ending. The nihilism of THE PERFECT GAME will get reversed and changed into a romantic ideal in Akira's next important feature film also directed by Masuda, FORGET THAT WOMAN.

I highly recommend this film. It is much more fun then CRAZED FRUIT and SEASON OF THE SUN in my opinion. Hope this will get picked up by Criterion or Arrow or Masters of Cinema ...









Akira not really sticking out of the rest of the cast during the first half of the movie. Our anti-heroes are obviously enjoying the sweet life here with expensive cars, lots of free time and a big apartment they have for more or less free use. They don't really need the money from the bets on the horse race, but start their plot to cheat on the betting office out of pure boredom.







Okada Masumi in the last screenshot above is one of the most important early side actors in Nikkatsu Action. Here he can be seen before having an off-screen rape scene involving Izumi Ashikawa.





Hayama Ryoji as the Yakuza who runs the betting office our anti-heroes try to betray. He is great in this movie as a character driven to take extreme actions due to his circumstances. Also on a sidenote, these Film Noir-like scenes in the early Nikkatsu Action movies are absolutely gorgeous to look at. In this particular scene we have a frontlight which goes on and off on a regular basis.





Akira slowly turning into the hero of the story. He still is far away from his future screen image, but early developments are definitely traceable in my opinion.

[Maito Guy Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Maito Guy]

Sorry for the delay guys. I've been busy these last few weeks, so I wasn't able to write much on the Nikkatsu stuff I've seen. I'll try to get out one post a day until I finish my list of movies I want to write about here. So let's start right away with MARRIAGE BROKING.

MARRIAGE BROKING (Kekkon soudan; 23.11.1965, Ko Nakahira)

Unfortunately I don't know much about the circumstances under which this little gem got into production at Nikkatsu, but Nakahira seemingly shot quite a few such "New Wave" kind of films at that time. For example the year before he directed the marvellous YUKA ON MONDAYS (Getsuyoubi no yuka), which is probably my favorite film of his.

MARRIAGE BROKING features Izumi Ashikawa in the main role as a woman desperately on the search for a husband because she wants to marry before turning too old (she is 30 years old at the beginning of the movie, which also says quite a thing about Japanese marriage culture I guess). She turns to an agency which on the surface pretends to find well-matching partners, but in truth is used by it's madam to find new girls for her callgirl ring. We then follow our heroine on her way down until she finally ends up as one of the callgirls.

The story seems a little bit over the top and definitely is, but I didn't think about it much watching the film. Somehow Nakahira manages to let all make sense within the world of the movie, so one never really questions it. The whole movie is incredibly stylish shot while still giving it's performers lots of room to work. It features a great performance by Izumi Ashikawa obviously having a lot of fun playing such a different character in comparison to her usual roles as the idealized Japanese woman for our action hero.

The DVD liner notes unfortunately didn't provide much interesting informations besides that it was kind of a "trend" to have women suffering in films in the mid 60ies. I'd say this doesn't necessarily limit itself to the mid 60ies, but in general is a theme rather popular throughout the whole history of Japanese cinema. One example of another such film from around the same time also shot at Nikkatsu could be THE FLAME OF DEVOTION (Shuen; 22.11.1964, Koreyoshi Kurahara) which featured Ruriko Asaoka in a suffering woman role. That film also marks the beginning of her fruitful collaboration with director Koreyoshi Kurahara on a string of "Women" films until Kurahara left Nikkatsu in 1968.

Overall I wouldn't rate this as high as YUKA ON MONDAYS but overall it gets a clear recommendation from me.







Of course there were lots of beautiful actresses working for Nikkatsu at the time, but Izumi Ashikawa is one of my personal favorites.



The older woman left is an actress I've seen in a lot of different movies, not only from Nikkatsu. I think she also appeared in a few Ozu ones, not 100% sure about this though. Here she plays the mother of our heroine and as usual gives a great performance.

[Maito Guy Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Maito Guy]

I also watched quite a few movies featuring Sayuri Yoshinaga. I'll start in this post with her first main role in GIRL IN A GLASSHOUSE and the movie which more or less made a star out of her, FOUNDRY TOWN.

Girl in a Glasshouse (Garasu no naka no shoujo; 9.11.1960, Mitsuo Wakasugi)

Sayuri Yoshinaga came to Nikkatsu in 1960 and at the beginning of her career starred as heroine alongside Keiichiro Akagi in the second and third part of the TALES OF A GUNMAN series. She also appeared alongside another member of the DIAMOND LINE, Koji Wada and right before GIRL IN A GLASSHOUSE she appeared in a great early Seijun Suzuki movie called THE MADNESS OF YOUTH. Although GIRL IN A GLASSHOUSE marked her first main role she mainly appeared in smaller roles alongside Nikkatsu's male stars over the rest of 1960 and more or less the whole year of 1961 until she finally had her big breakthrough in 1962 with her awarded role in FOUNDRY TOWN and an integral role alongside Yujiro in YOUNG LEAVES.

GIRL IN A GLASSHOUSE is one of these cheap B movies Nikkatsu was still churning out in 1960. The film comes in at about 60 minutes and clearly didn't have much of a budget to play with. For Yoshinaga it not only marked her first main role but also the beginning of her collaboration with Mitsuo Hamada. The film has a few weaker moments here and there (mainly scenes featuring the father of Yoshinaga's character) but every scene of her and Hamada together is great.



The film starts with a short scene ending with this shot of Yoshinaga's character floating dead on the surface of a lake before the opening credits roll in and we find out what lead her character to this end.



I'm not 100% sure but I think this must've been the first time Yoshinaga and Hamada Mitsuo starred together in a film. At least it definitely was the first time that both played leading roles. The scenes featuring both of them are by far the strongest in the movie.



One can clearly see the low budget this movie had on some of these scenes featuring obvious back projection.





A classic shot featured in so many Nikkatsu movies, but usually it's the girl outside of the bus.



I just love these Japanese townscapes.



The film ends with this scene of our two lovers on the sea just before they commit suicide. It's a heart wrenching scene succeeding with little gestures instead of over the top melodrama.

The poster:



Foundry Town (Kyuupora no aru machi; 8.4.1962, Kiriro Urayama)

FOUNDRY TOWN was Yoshinaga's big breakthrough. It not only ended up being a big hit but also got Yoshinaga a Blue Ribbon award for best actress of the year. She was the youngest actress to win this award, at the time being only 17 years old, until 50 years later in 2012 her record finally got broken. The film features a great script by Kaneto Shindo treating quite a few different social issues amongst others regarding Japan's big economical boost in the early 60ies and the influence this had on the lower end of the social ladder in Japan at that time and also the problems Japanese-Korean citizens had to suffer through and to some extent still have to suffer through up until today.

Yoshinaga plays a young girl who is just about to graduate from middle school and wants to go to high school the next year. Her parents would rather have her helping out the family through a job, especially after her father gets fired from his job in the metal industry. She also has a younger brother who has to fight his own problems in a world seemingly invisible for elders.

The film mainly focuses on Yoshinaga's character and her younger brother. Both of them have to find their way of living in a harsh world which surrounds them while still staying true to their beliefs. As such the film not only touches on social issues but also links well to the big theme Nikkatsu movies seemed to have at that time, the own self.

I can highly recommend FOUNDRY TOWN. It's a well acted, effectively directed movie with great cinematography and a great script.



Quite a lot of screen time is given to the younger brother of Yoshinaga's character. Here he is together with two of his friends commenting on a local middle school baseball game. The scenes with him reminded me quite a bit of Ozu's early masterpiece I WAS BORN, BUT ...



Mitsuo Hamada also appears in FOUNDRY TOWN but takes up a rather small part in the story. There is no clear relationship drawn out between his and Yoshinaga's character in this one, but it is hinted at that both of them eventually will find together.





In the two screenshots above one sees both Yoshinaga's character and her little brother with their respective Japanese-Korean friends.











The poster:



And the trailer:

[tetrapak Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close tetrapak]

Not sure if you mentioned it in this very cool thread yet but I am currently reading this old Mark Schilling book





it is very informative as it features profiles of main actors, directors and a history of the genre

...and after all these years since its release you can find it for few bucks

[Takuma Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Takuma]

Happinet is releasing a lot of Nikkatsu action/yakuza films from at least January 2020 through March 2020. The full list is here:

http://www.happinet-p.com/jp3/releases/category/moviej

The keyword here is Tetsuya Watari.

I made a very quick list of the new releases, omitting all re-releases (e.g. Velvet Hustler, the Gangster VIP series)

2020/01/08

新宿アウトãƒãƒ¼ ぶっ飛ばせ (Step on the Gas) (1970)
Dir. Toshiya Fujita
Cast: Tetsuya Watari, Meiko Kaji, Yoshio Harada, Mikio Narita

白鳥 (Hakuchí´) (1966)
Dir. Katsumi Nishikawa
Cast: Sayuri Yoshinaga, Tetsuya Watari

æ˜å’Œã‚„くざ系図　長崎の顔 (Showa Yakuza Family Tree-Face of Nagasaki) (1969)
Dir. Takashi Nomura
Cast: Tetsuya Watari, Noboru Ando, Tatsuya Fuji



2020.02.04

赤いグラス (Akai glass) (1966)
Dir. Ko Nakahira
Cast: Tetsuya Watari, Jí´ji Ai

燃える雲 (Burning Clouds) (1967)
Dir. Takashi Nomura
Cast: Tetsuya Watari, Joe Shishido, Hideaki Nitani, Ryo Ikebe, Ryí´hei Uchida

野獣を消せ (Savage Wolf Pack) (1969)
Dir. Yasuharu Hasebe
Cast: Tetsuya Watari, Tatsuya Fuji, Tamio Kawaji



2020.03.03

星よ嘆くな　勝利の男 (The Man of Victory) (1967)
Dir. Toshio Masuda
Cast: Tetsuya Watari, Ruriko Asaoka, Meiko Kaji, Hideaki Nitani

ã‚ãŒå‘½ã®å”„ã€€è‰¶æŒ (Waga inochi no uta enka) (1968)
Dir. Toshio Masuda
Cast: Tetsuya Watari, Kei Sato

夢は夜ひらく (Unfolding Night of Dreams) (1967)
Dir. Haruyasu Noguchi
Cast: Mari Sono, Tetsuya Watari, Hideki Takahashi

青春の海 (Seishun no umi) (1967)
Dir. Shogoro Nishimura
Cast: Sayuri Yoshinaga, Tetsuya Watari



I don't know much about these films, Step on the Gas (a bit disappointing) and Savage Wolf Pack (pretty good and very violent!) being the only ones I've seen. Great to see one Shogoro Nishimura coming to dvd, too. He was a shit Roman Porno director, but made some really cool mainstream films before that.