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Been watching Nikkatsu movies on TV...
Tokyo Drifter 2: The Sea is Bright Red as the Color of Love (続東京流れ者 海は真っ赤な恋の色) (Japan, 1966) [TV] – 3.5/5
A surprisingly good sequel to the Seijun Suzuki classic. Nikkatsu’s youth film director Kenjiro Morinaga (of the excellent Youth a Go Go, 1966) takes helm and executes it as a more traditional Nikkatsu Mood Action. Watari plays the same character as in the original film. The opening sees him arriving in a harbour town, with a hitman on his tail. He’s come to meet an old buddy, and while waiting for him also crosses paths with local beauty Kazuko Tachibana, who likewise is waiting for someone. Watari is also offered shelter by old man Zenpei Saga, whose son is in trouble with bad guy Nobuo Kaneko and in love with cutie Chieko Matsubara. Watari of course chooses to get involved. This is a surprisingly entertaining film with 1st rate cinematography and art direction. The locale is particularly well captured. It is however missing Suzuki’s wilder pop art experimentation, and may not be what foreign audiences would expect from a Tokyo Drifter sequel. That is of course because Suzuki was something of an outlier in the genre, while this movie is a more traditional entry in the Nikkatsu Action line. It’s a shame none of the recent Blu-Ray releases of the Suzuki classic have bundled this with it.
A Record of Love and Death (愛と死の記録) (Japan, 1966) [TV] - 4/5
Printing shop worker Tetsuya Watari and record shop clerk Sayuri Yoshinaga fall in love in once nuclear devastated Hiroshima. But the romance comes with a heavy baggage when it turns out he, exposed to nuclear radiation as a little boy, has no guarantees of growing old. Objectively speaking, this isn't so different from the box office smashing tear jerker garbage that has infested Japanese cinema for decades. But somehow this is so much better. Perhaps it's because of Watari and Yoshinaga's charming performances. Maybe it's because of new wave director Koreyoshi Kurahara, whose energetic helming is equally romantic and gritty. Perhaps it’s because there’s a real, living city in the background captured with an almost documentary like touch. Or maybe the story just seems more poignant than some purely fictional setting with a schoolgirl / boyfriend / uncle / dog dying from cancer. Probably it's all of that. The film has also been distributed under the title The Heart of Hiroshima.
Three Wives: Wild Nights (妻三人 狂乱の夜) (Japan, 1972) [TV] - 1.5/5
An early Masaru Konuma film that fares a little better than the title would suggest. This is actually a lightweight family satire / comedy about a rich man, his son, and their women / wives / housekeepers, all of whom have trouble keeping their pants on. Modestly entertaining for a while, and relatively restrained compared to the later Roman Porno sleaze fests, I nevertheless lost interest (and count of the wives) after the first 35 minutes. There appeared to be no reason to care, really.
Rape Frenzy: Five Minutes before Graduation (卒業五分前 群姦) (Japan, 1977) [TV] – 3.5/5
With a title like this, you think you know what you’re in for. Well, what do you know? This is one of action director gone rogue pink helmer Yukihiro Sawada’s best pictures, a youth drama following stressed-out, confused male and female students on their last day before high school graduation, facing an uncertain and bleak future. The film is far more reminiscent of Nikkatsu’s early 70s youth pictures and the following year’s Panic in High School (1978) than anything the title (which may or may not have been a commercial after-thought) would have you expect. There are several good scenes with the alienated protagonist finding himself detached from the people around him, his friend trying to escape the patronising society with a girlfriend and a shotgun, and live rock music performed in party scenes. And then some sexual assaults (half of them performed by girls or women against boys) springing from societal frustration and personal insecurity. The cinematography is excellent, with loads of those lovely ‘lonely people walking the city streets in solitude’ shots. The ending is a little underwhelming but perhaps fittingly low-key, and does not, by the way, deliver any kind of rape frenzy five minutes before the graduation. For other fine Sawada Roman Porno films see his beast cop thriller Retreat through the Wet Wasteland (1973) and the Peckinpah influenced Assault! (1976).
Revolver (リボルバー) (Japan, 1988) [TV] - 3/5
Toshiya Fujita's last film. A lazy-ass Kyushu cop (Kenji Sawada) loses his gun to a thieving salaryman head-butted by love life, triggering a chain reaction where the gun travels from one character to another and causes misery. But you'll have to wait 35 minutes for the gun even to go missing, and twice as long before most of the film's nearly dozen main characters (a troubled schoolboy and his non-girlfriend, a bar girl with a violent friend from the past, a duo of slacking gamblers etc.) meet in a Sapporo set climax. Also, having been made in the 80s, when action was frowned upon and non-eventful character drama celebrated in Japanese cinema, the missing gun ends up playing secondary role to all the human relationship sub-plots. The good news is that Fujita handles it better than most, keeping the viewer moderately interested in the drama, without forgetting to include dry humour, casual sex, nudity, and one brutal rape, all served in 80s mainstream film wrapping.
Tokyo Drifter 2: The Sea is Bright Red as the Color of Love (続東京流れ者 海は真っ赤な恋の色) (Japan, 1966) [TV] – 3.5/5
A surprisingly good sequel to the Seijun Suzuki classic. Nikkatsu’s youth film director Kenjiro Morinaga (of the excellent Youth a Go Go, 1966) takes helm and executes it as a more traditional Nikkatsu Mood Action. Watari plays the same character as in the original film. The opening sees him arriving in a harbour town, with a hitman on his tail. He’s come to meet an old buddy, and while waiting for him also crosses paths with local beauty Kazuko Tachibana, who likewise is waiting for someone. Watari is also offered shelter by old man Zenpei Saga, whose son is in trouble with bad guy Nobuo Kaneko and in love with cutie Chieko Matsubara. Watari of course chooses to get involved. This is a surprisingly entertaining film with 1st rate cinematography and art direction. The locale is particularly well captured. It is however missing Suzuki’s wilder pop art experimentation, and may not be what foreign audiences would expect from a Tokyo Drifter sequel. That is of course because Suzuki was something of an outlier in the genre, while this movie is a more traditional entry in the Nikkatsu Action line. It’s a shame none of the recent Blu-Ray releases of the Suzuki classic have bundled this with it.
A Record of Love and Death (愛と死の記録) (Japan, 1966) [TV] - 4/5
Printing shop worker Tetsuya Watari and record shop clerk Sayuri Yoshinaga fall in love in once nuclear devastated Hiroshima. But the romance comes with a heavy baggage when it turns out he, exposed to nuclear radiation as a little boy, has no guarantees of growing old. Objectively speaking, this isn't so different from the box office smashing tear jerker garbage that has infested Japanese cinema for decades. But somehow this is so much better. Perhaps it's because of Watari and Yoshinaga's charming performances. Maybe it's because of new wave director Koreyoshi Kurahara, whose energetic helming is equally romantic and gritty. Perhaps it’s because there’s a real, living city in the background captured with an almost documentary like touch. Or maybe the story just seems more poignant than some purely fictional setting with a schoolgirl / boyfriend / uncle / dog dying from cancer. Probably it's all of that. The film has also been distributed under the title The Heart of Hiroshima.
Three Wives: Wild Nights (妻三人 狂乱の夜) (Japan, 1972) [TV] - 1.5/5
An early Masaru Konuma film that fares a little better than the title would suggest. This is actually a lightweight family satire / comedy about a rich man, his son, and their women / wives / housekeepers, all of whom have trouble keeping their pants on. Modestly entertaining for a while, and relatively restrained compared to the later Roman Porno sleaze fests, I nevertheless lost interest (and count of the wives) after the first 35 minutes. There appeared to be no reason to care, really.
Rape Frenzy: Five Minutes before Graduation (卒業五分前 群姦) (Japan, 1977) [TV] – 3.5/5
With a title like this, you think you know what you’re in for. Well, what do you know? This is one of action director gone rogue pink helmer Yukihiro Sawada’s best pictures, a youth drama following stressed-out, confused male and female students on their last day before high school graduation, facing an uncertain and bleak future. The film is far more reminiscent of Nikkatsu’s early 70s youth pictures and the following year’s Panic in High School (1978) than anything the title (which may or may not have been a commercial after-thought) would have you expect. There are several good scenes with the alienated protagonist finding himself detached from the people around him, his friend trying to escape the patronising society with a girlfriend and a shotgun, and live rock music performed in party scenes. And then some sexual assaults (half of them performed by girls or women against boys) springing from societal frustration and personal insecurity. The cinematography is excellent, with loads of those lovely ‘lonely people walking the city streets in solitude’ shots. The ending is a little underwhelming but perhaps fittingly low-key, and does not, by the way, deliver any kind of rape frenzy five minutes before the graduation. For other fine Sawada Roman Porno films see his beast cop thriller Retreat through the Wet Wasteland (1973) and the Peckinpah influenced Assault! (1976).
Revolver (リボルバー) (Japan, 1988) [TV] - 3/5
Toshiya Fujita's last film. A lazy-ass Kyushu cop (Kenji Sawada) loses his gun to a thieving salaryman head-butted by love life, triggering a chain reaction where the gun travels from one character to another and causes misery. But you'll have to wait 35 minutes for the gun even to go missing, and twice as long before most of the film's nearly dozen main characters (a troubled schoolboy and his non-girlfriend, a bar girl with a violent friend from the past, a duo of slacking gamblers etc.) meet in a Sapporo set climax. Also, having been made in the 80s, when action was frowned upon and non-eventful character drama celebrated in Japanese cinema, the missing gun ends up playing secondary role to all the human relationship sub-plots. The good news is that Fujita handles it better than most, keeping the viewer moderately interested in the drama, without forgetting to include dry humour, casual sex, nudity, and one brutal rape, all served in 80s mainstream film wrapping.
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