This collection came out a couple of months ago, but I just heard about it recently. With the holiday season upon us and Amazon promising delivery by the 24th if you order by the 17th, it’s not too late to mention it as a gift idea for the mystery (or movie) buff in your life.
Criterion Collection has released six classic Japanese noir movies that should be a boon to crime fiction fans, movie buffs, and everyone in between.
From the late 1950s through the sixties, wild, idiosyncratic crime movies were the brutal and boisterous business of Nikkatsu, the oldest film studio in Japan. In an effort to attract youthful audiences growing increasingly accustomed to American and French big-screen imports, Nikkatsu began producing action potboilers (mukokuseki akushun, or “borderless action”) that incorporated elements of the western, comedy, gangster, and teen-rebel genres. This bruised and bloody collection represents a standout cross-section of what Nikkatsu had to offer, from such prominent, stylistically daring directors as Seijun Suzuki, Toshio Masuda, and Takashi Nomura.
If you’re willing to go the extra mile, then you can put some of the crime fiction that Vertical offers with it, and you’ll have a great present.
Films in the box set include:
I Am Waiting (1957)
In Koreyoshi Kurahara’s directorial debut, rebel matinee idol Yujiro Ishihara (fresh off the sensational Crazed Fruit) stars as a restaurant manager and former boxer who saves a beautiful, suicidal club hostess (Mie Kitahara) trying to escape the clutches of her gangster employer. Featuring expressionist lighting and bold camera work, this was one of Nikkatsu’s early successes.
Rusty Knife (1958)
In Toshio Masuda’s smash Rusty Knife, Yujiro Ishihara and fellow top Nikkatsu star Akira Kobayashi play former hoodlums trying to leave behind a life of crime, but their past comes back to haunt them when the authorities seek them out as murder witnesses.
Take Aim at the Police Van (1960) (Trailer)
At the beginning of Seijun Suzuki’s taut and twisty whodunit, a prison truck is attacked and a convict inside is murdered. The penitentiary warden on duty, Daijiro (Michitaro Mizushima), is accused of negligence and suspended, only to take it upon himself to track down the killers.
Cruel Gun Story (1964)
Fresh out of the slammer, Togawa (Branded to Kill’s Joe Shishido) has no chance to go straight because he is immediately coerced by a wealthy mob boss into organizing the heist of an armored car carrying racetrack receipts.
A Colt is My Passport (1967) (Trailer)
One of Japanese cinema’s supreme emulations of American noir, Takashi Nomura’s A Colt Is My Passport is a down-and-dirty but gorgeously photographed yakuza film starring Joe Shishido as a hard-boiled hit man caught between rival gangs.
