Japanese Outlaw Masters Return 2007
Co-Presented by the Japan Foundation
Discuss this series with other film fans on:
http://www.myspace.com/americancinematheque
This is an Egyptian
Theatre Exclusive!
More of the wildest, fastest and most uncompromising from the Golden Age of Japanese genre
cinema (and many are not on DVD)! We've got SWORD OF DOOM (a sought-after, awe-inspiring
and hard-to-see-on-the-big-screen samurai classic) and Shohei Imamura's emotional cyclone
of a movie, VENGEANCE IS MINE, about a real-life serial killer; plus a double feature from
Seijun Suzuki -- eye-dazzling pop confections, including the action-packed, ultra-mod
DETECTIVE OFFICE #23 - GO TO HELL, BASTARDS! As part of our mini-tribute to the late
Imamura, we've also got PIGS AND BATTLESHIPS a savagely satirical tragi-comedy about crime
in the slums. And don't miss Kon Ichikawa's controverial PUNISHMENT ROOM (all but
banned-in-1950's Japan) that surpasses REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE in youth-on-the-rampage
pyrotechnics. Strap yourself in and get ready for one helluva ride!
Thursday, September 6 – 7:30 PM
Samurai Double Feature:
SWORD OF DOOM (DAIBOSATSU
TOGE), 1966, Janus Films, 120 min. Director Kihachi Okamoto made a slew
of great films, including KILL!, DESPERADO OUTPOST, AGE OF ASSASSINS, SAMURAI ASSASSIN,
and THE HUMAN BULLET – to name only a few! – but his ultimate masterwork is this
uncompromising samurai film. It is a riveting, desolate picture, anchored by a mesmerizing
portrayal from Tatsuya Nakadai as paranoid killer Ryunosuke Tsukue, an outcast from
his family and a hunted man recruited by the notorious Shinsengumi band of assassins.
There have been many movie renditions of Kaizan Nakazato’s popular novel The Great
Boddhisatva Pass since it first appeared over seventy years ago, but Okamoto’s
version in ashen black-and-white scope captures the nihilistic netherworld of the
sociopathic swordsman best. Masaru Sato’s music is at the pinnacle of a multitude of
great Japanese movie scores from the 1960’s. The supporting cast, including Toshiro
Mifune, Michiyo Aratama and Yuzo Kayama, are all excellent. Screenwriter,
Shinobu Hashimoto (who co-wrote many of Akira Kurosawa’s masterpieces) provides an
expert distillation, going back to the literary source. If you’ve never seen it on
the big screen, it is not to be missed.
THE GREAT MELEE (DAI
SATSUJIN), 1964, Toei Studios, 118 min. The literal translation of the Japanese title
is "The Great Killing" and, as you might guess, it delivers in spades. Director Eiichi
Kudo (THIRTEEN ASSASSINS) helmed this stark samurai allegory of the radical student
movement in early sixties Japan and captures this feeling perfectly without sledgehammer
proselytizing. A reform activist (Kotaro Satomi) is pulled into a violent
fray when an acquaintance hunted by government troops hides in his house. Samurai police
burst in, kill the man and attempt to arrest Satomi. Rescued by fellow activists who
create a diversion, Satomi is sheltered by a good natured, hard-drinking, apolitical ronin
(Mikijiro Hira, of SWORD OF THE BEAST and THREE OUTLAW SAMURAI). A wealthy
opposition samurai organizes Satomi, a female ninja, a sex-obsessed priest and a samurai
family man, in an effort to assassinate the province’s abusive ruler. However, the
cruel, arrogant lord (Kantaro Suga) has an expert swordsman as his bodyguard (Ryutaro
Otomo). Consequently, the desperate crew’s unraveling plan devolves into a
spectacular bloodbath of repression that will serve as a wake-up call for previously
carefree samurai Hira. NOT ON DVD
Friday, September 7 – 7:30 PM
Shohei Imamura Double Feature:
PIGS AND BATTLESHIPS (BUTA
TO GUNKAN), 1961, Janus Films, 108 min. Director Shohei Imamura’s
superlative, atypical yakuza saga of slum waif Jitsuko Yoshimura, her wannabe
gangster boyfriend Hiroyuki Nagato, an ucler-plagued gang boss Tetsuro Tanba
(THREE OUTLAW SAMURAI) and a plot to sell pigs on the post-WWII black market of their
shantytown, dockside inferno. The nearby U.S. military base provides fertile soil for all
varieties of crime, including prostitution, narcotics, protection rackets, gambling and
black market goods. Imamura’s dark sense of humor integrates perfectly with his
trademark sociology-lesson-from-hell realism. The climax where Nagato grabs a machine gun
and hijacks the convoy of pigs, only to release them in a porcine stampede in the red
light district is simultaneously funny, scary and sad. A matter-of-fact, unsentimental
masterpiece. NOT ON DVD
INTENTIONS OF MURDER
(AKAI SATSUI), 1964, Janus Films, 150 min. Director Shohei Imamura expertly
treads the fine line between a shocking sociological exposé and an uncompromising
suspense thriller. Masumi Harukawa is Sadako, a downtrodden housewife, abused by
her husband (Ko Nishimura, of SWORD OF DOOM) and mother-in-law. After being raped
by a strange intruder (Shigeru Tsuyuguchi), she decides to kill herself. But the
rapist returns, expressing his love and, to her own surprise, Sadako begins a passionate
affair with her anguished attacker. The tryst awakens Sadako’s awareness of her own
power as a woman, and she is finally able to stand up against everyone in her life that is
using her to take out their own frustrations. "…a faultlessly constructed
model of sophistication, which uses its messy appearance to suggest that beneath the
ordered chaos of modernity with all of its artificial constraints, it is characters such
as Sadako that provide the beating heart that enables society to continue."
– Jasper Sharp, Midnight Eye NOT ON DVD
Saturday, September 8 – 7:30 PM
Delinquent Sociopaths Double
Feature:
New 35mm Print!
VENGEANCE IS MINE (FUKUSHU SURU WA WARE NI ARI),
1979, Janus Films, 140 min. Based on a true story, this is one of director Shohei
Imamura’s most well-known and popular masterworks, and features Ken Ogata
in his breakout role as sociopathic killer Iwao Enokizu. Imamura captures tormented
Enokizu’s rampage of robbery and murder, effortlessly flowing in-and-out of
flashbacks to his past life, with equally astonishing performances from Rentaro Mikuni
as his scrupulously Catholic father and Mitsuko Baisho as his lonely, love-starved
wife. A great crime film that rises above and beyond the genre, achieving a totality that
enables Enokizu’s character to be recognized as a vulnerable human being while still
holding him responsible for his brutally amoral transgressions."Movies about
actual crimes are usually frustrating because, limited to the facts, they pretend that the
facts are enough…VENGEANCE IS MINE transcends those limitations and gives us a
portrait of a killer that is poignant, tragic and banal enough to deserve the comparison
with Crime and Punishment." – Roger Ebert, Chicago-Sun Times
PUNISHMENT ROOM (SHOKEI NO HEYA) 1956, Kadokawa
Pictures, 96 min. Dir. Kon Ichikawa (THE BURMESE HARP; FIRES ON THE PLAIN). A
phenomenal, astonishing and pioneering youth film that makes REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE look
anemic in comparison. This spectacle of an angry, ego-driven youth (Hiroshi Kawaguchi)
haunted by his own emotional impotence and resentment towards his parents, was immensely
influential on Japanese pictures that came after - from Nagisa Oshima’s CRUEL STORY
OF YOUTH and Seijun Suzuki’s EVERYTHING GOES WRONG to Kinji Fukasaku’s GRAVEYARD
OF HONOR & HUMANITY and even Imamura’s VENGEANCE IS MINE. Kawaguchi, intelligent
but hating the idea of becoming ‘tamed’ (or grown up) abuses everyone -- his
ulcer-ridden bank teller dad (Seiji Miyaguchi, of THE SEVEN SAMURAI), his
long-suffering mom, his teachers, his best friends (when they decide to take school
seriously) and the girl he fancies (Ayako Wakao, of MANJI). Original story writer
Shintaro Ishihara, brother of Nikkatsu Studios superstar Yujiro, had already written
several other "sun tribe" (taiyo-zoku) bestsellers about directionless youth
propelled by self-will, self-gratification and self-destruction. Two -- SEASONS IN THE SUN
and CRAZED FRUIT -- had already been made into films. Parents, teachers and politicians
had been grumbling, but PUNISHMENT ROOM was the straw that broke the camel’s back,
causing all the studios to put a moratorium on "sun tribe" pictures. Ironically,
Ishihara is now a prominent, conservative member of the Japanese government. NOT ON DVD
Sunday, September 9 – 7:30 PM
Seijun Suzuki Action Double
Feature:
DETECTIVE OFFICE #23
– GO TO HELL, BASTARDS! (TANTEI JIMUSHO NIJUSAN-KUTABARE AKUTODOMO), 1963,
Nikkatsu, 92 min. Dir. Seijun Suzuki (TOKYO DRIFTER; GATE OF FLESH).
Surreal, ultra-mod nuttiness with hep cool cat Joe Shishido (BRANDED TO KILL)
tooling around in an Austin Healey working for detective bureau boss Nobuo Kaneko
(BATTLES WITHOUT HONOR & HUMANITY) to break up a band of hoods who have stolen weapons
from a U.S. Army base. Much like his other film from 1963, YOUTH OF THE BEAST,
Suzuki’s irreverent visual humor breaks free in striking color compositions and
action choreography, especially in some riotous nightclub scenes, with a great ‘60s
rock/R&B/ Dixieland (!) hybrid score, and, last but not least, a flaming gas jet
finale down in villain Kinzo Shin’s cellar. With Tamio Kawaji, Reiko
Sassamori. NOT ON DVD
FLOWER AND THE
ANGRY WAVES (HANA TO DOTO) 1964, Nikkatsu, 92 min. Director Seijun
Suzuki’s classic spin on the traditional ninkyo yakuza genre, with Akira
Kobayashi (BLACK TIGHT KILLERS) as a young anti-hero in a coal carters union in the
turn-of-the-20th-century Taisho era up against a rival evil gang. He is also
caught between the virginal Chieko Matsubara and the more worldly Naoko Kubo.
Midway through the saga, his face is slightly disfigured, something which must have
wreaked havoc with the sensibilities of matinee-idol/pop star Kobayashi’s younger
female fanbase. Also with Tamio Kawaji as a sword-wielding assassin in
Zorro-cape-and-hat (!). NOT ON DVD
|
