Rare Japanese Cult Cinema reviews (No DVD / BD)

[HungFist]

TV Review / Not Available on DVD

Three Lakes Prison: Widespread Brutality (三池監獄 兇悪犯) (1973)

Try to beat this opening: dirty prisoners working in a coal mine dig a tunnel to the neighbouring mine... a tunnel full of sweaty topless girls in physical labour. Someone's tipped off the guards though, and as they return every man is shot (3-15 times). A 1973 Toei film by Shigehiro Ozawa, this initially seems like a male version of WiP movies, complete with bare-assed men marching the corridors, naked guys in tiny cages, a silent protagonist, and at least one third of the inmate population being gay. How odd. Unfortunately the film then tones it down considerably to become a socially aware, violent drama about Meiji Era Japan which was exploiting prisoners to finance their war with Russia. The jitsuroku influence is obvious. The film's weak link is Koji Tsuruta, the venerable samurai and ninkyo star who is obviously disgusted to be in this movie, and would quit Toei very soon after. Co-stars Joe Shishido, Goro Ibuki and Minoru Oki give more passionate performances. Uneven but interesting film, and peculiar for its coal mine setting. Note: misspelled by IMDb and Chris D.'s as "San ike kangoku", the correct reading is "Miike kangoku: Kyoakuhan".



Tsuruta and Shishido










Yuriko Hishimi

[DenPryan]

Thanks for the review. I liked this hard film.

[HungFist]

Thanks.

You're very much welcome to post reviews here if you wish to share your opinions and knowledge.

[HungFist]

TV Review / Not Available on DVD

Saburai: Way of the Bohachi (忘八武士道　さ無頼) (1974)
Disappointing follow-up to Teruo Ishii's chanbara masterpiece Bohachi Bushido: Code of the Forgotten Eight (1973). Ishii mentioned in an interview that he didn't even know Toei had made a sequel. This is a blatant re-telling of the original, with Goro Ibuki playing Tetsuro Tamba's role, although it's not clear whether this supposed to be a remake or a sequel. The storyline is almost the same with many scenes playing out exactly the same way! And this came out less than a year after Ishii's film! Someone ought to ask writer Sadao Nakajima what on earth was going on in the pre-production? It still has its own trashy appeal with just as much sex and violence as Ishii's film, but it is also incoherent in characterization and lacks the style, pace, originality and superb action of Ishii's film. Aside from a couple of fun new additions (Reiko Ike as a woman dealer and Takuzo Kawatani as her abused servant in a gloriously misandric role, for once!) the film feels like a copy by a lesser filmmaker, that man being the mediocre Takashi Harada. Ibuki and Harada, however, teamed up for a better ninja sexploitation the following year, Shitakari Hanjirô: (Maruhi) kannon wo sagase, which, like this film, was based on a Kazuo Koike comic book.

Code of the Forgotten Eight: Bored hero gives up a fight, throws himself to river, is thought to be dead
Way of the Bohachi: Bored hero gives up a fight, is arrested, taken to be executed, is thought to be dead


Code of the Forgotten Eight: Hero wakes up at Bohachi headquarters, fondled by naked bohachi women
Way of the Bohachi: Hero wakes up at Bohachi headquarters, fondled by naked bohachi women (that made more sense in Ishii's film where he had been rescued from cold water. Here he has suffered a neck injury for God's sake!)


Code of the Forgotten Eight: deadly bohachi women trained in assassination techniques
Way of the Bohachi: deadly. bohachi.. oh dear, I could go on forever about this




Hey, something new: Reiko Ike


And her loyal jealous servant Takuzo Kawatani




And here we go again. Yep, it's the exact same ending as in Ishii's film (the following scene has rain instead of snow, though)

[Guro Taku]

If nothing else, the Toei Channel version looks a lot better than my old VHS. I'd probably pick up a DVD release even if it's indeed just an inferior remake.

[HungFist]

VoD Review / Not Available on DVD

King of Porno (ポルノの帝王) (1971)
Dumb Tatsuo Umemiya / Shingo Yamashiro comedy about a young bloke whose dick grows to inhuman dimensions (obviously a role tailor made for star Umemiya's ego). He visits a doctor, impresses ladies and opens a porn shop before running afoul with yakuza... With few laughs, sparse nudity and one big slong that is little utilized and never seen, this is dull junk, as bad as some of director Makoto Naito's other films with Umemiya. The boredom gets to the point where watching a big fake dick would probably have been more fun than what the film has to offer. Well, it does at least have the subtly titled theme song "Manhood's Symbol" by Umemiya!

King of Porno: Red God of the Turkish Bath (ポルノの帝王失神トルコ風呂) (1972)
This is a better than the previous film, with more naked girls, more outrageous scenarios and visually more stylish. There's an especially hilarious Umemiya's dick vs. brothel scene, as well as some fun stuff with Umemiya putting up a whorehouse with only foreign girls he's picked up from the street. Yumiko Katayama is in the film as well. Unfortunately the film keeps abandoning its own good ideas, even the Turkish bath theme is ultimately just a background elements. Also, opening and closing 20 minutes, in which absolutely nothing interesting happens, are excruciatingly boring.







Yumiko Katayama














Both films are now on Junk Film by Toei channel on Amazon JP Prime. Note that the first film, unlike the sequel, is presented in old VHS era master.

[HungFist]

VoD Review / Not Available on DVD

The Master of The Turkish Bath (Kigeki toruko-buro osho-sen) (喜劇トルコ風呂王将戦) (1971)
Dull as dishwater Shingo Yamashiro comedy about a pig sound making silly man who finds success in brothel business with his equally silly male and female cohorts. Don't expect any naughtiness as this is essentially a family friendly affair (no graphic sex whatsoever, a tiny bit of nudity) despite the subject matter. Worse yet, there's not one interesting scene in the film. Ok, perhaps the "Mobile Toruko" at the back of a truck was a fun idea. And there's Bunta Sugawara cameo. They don't count to much. The humour is mainly based on people making funny faces or saying silly things. One of the films in Toei's related-in-name-only Kigeki/Comedy series, following Toho's similarly titled 60s series.

Sex Up And Down (Kigeki sex kobo-sen) (喜劇セックス攻防戦) (1972)
Amusing Shingo Yamashiro sex comedy about a love doctor treating miscellaneous patients. Miki Sugimoto plays one of the three sukeban girls who barge into his clinic and demand to be hired (her role is small though). The supporting cast also includes Tooru Turi, Yukie Kagawa, Yoko Mihara, Yayoi Watanabe and Ryuhei Uchida as "pervert ninja". Unlike Master of the Turkish Bath, this film is absolutely packed with boobs - and gags dumb enough to get some laughs. Norifumi Suzuki's sex comedies like the two onsen geisha films make a good comparison as this resembles them. There's not much plot or exceptional qualities, but director Shin Takakuwa does acceptable job keeping things watchable and not overly goofy. He also directed one of the best Sonny Chiba films, the cop thriller A Narcotics Agent's Ballad (1972).

Creative use of the Eirin logo


Yamashiro




Watanabe on the left, Sugimoto on the right


Watanabe and Sugimoto treating a patient


Tooru Yuri undercover


Ryuhei Uchida!






Note: IMDb and JMDB are both listing Reiko Ike for this film, but I don't think she's in it. Neither list Miki Sugimoto (as of writing, I have already submitted her credit to IMDb) who is in it. Probably a mix up between the two.

[HungFist]

VoD Review / Not Available on DVD

Sex, Gamble And Big Money (Porno gamble kigeki: O ana, chu ana, heso no ana) (ポルノギャンブル喜劇　大穴中穴へその穴) (1972)
Panty stealing gambling addict becomes a gigolo but quits because the customers are too ugly. He then begins running various scams relating to prostitution and gambling with his associates. This is another Shingo Yamashiro / Yusuke Watanabe comedy. Watanabe was a capable drama director (e.g. the excellent, noirish Two Bitches, 1964) but awful with comedy, at least as far as these Yamashiro films go. This film's highlight is when Yamashiro snatches panties from a bathhouse and the owner turns out to be an old granny.

Note, the following review is for the King film that preceded King of Porno. I saw and reviewed them in the wrong order, resulting in some backwards logic if you read them in the posting order. Gomen.

King of the Widow-Killers (未亡人ごろしの帝王) ( 1971)
Part 3 in the King series (1970-1972). There were 5 films in total, all starring Tatsuo Umemiya as a young bloke who leaves his poor family and doctor dad behind to make fortunes in a big city with the help of his big slong. Yes, you read that right. There's also comedy, a bit of melodrama and some action when he runs afoul with gangsters. I have not seen the first two films, but considering the series theme song was called "Manhood's Symbol" and each of the three latter films followed the same formula, it's reasonable to assume the first two were in the same alley as well. This film features Umemiya becoming a gigolo. There's no nudity or good laughs, but it does feature the 'pop star about to go Roman Porno' Sally May as one of Umemiya's customers (Umemiya must have had a thing for blondes as he screwed a Caucasian girl in every other sexploitation flick he did, climaxing with the Oh Wonderful Utamaro (1974) where he claims to have had real sex with co-star Sharon Kelly). Other cinematic achievements are modest but there is the kind of technical basic quality to the film and direction that keeps it just about watchable.

Family reunion


Umemiya becomes a model... until the lady realizes what he's got in his pants.


He then starts selling his tool... and Sally May is one of the customers.




Yes, Shingo Yamashiro is in this one too.

[HungFist]

TV Review / Not Available on DVD

Evil Boss vs. The Henchmen (悪親分対代貸) (1971)
A conceptually fun twist to the usual ninkyo formula with Tomisaburo Wakayama as... The Evil Boss! He's the corrupt bastard who'd normally function as the villain threatening the heroes, who are largely absent from this film. Made between Wakayama's similar Story of Japanese Evil Men films (1971, 1972), this one is a bit better than them. The film still underperforms with little action, no sex, and a deadly boring first 30 min, but the concept does begin to spark eventually and the ending is a ton of fun. Also features a goodish Wakayama vs. Bunta Sugawara fight that echoes their brawls in the Wicked Priest series.

[HungFist]

VoD Review / Not Available on DVD

Yakuza vs. G-Men: Decoy (やくざ対gメン 囮) (1973)
Ruthless drug dealer (Hiroki Matsukata) is busted and forced to become a mole for an equally ruthless undercover cop (Tatsuo Umemiya) in a stylish, little known gangster film gem. Void of any comic relief, the film is bad to the bone with unmistakable jitsuroku aesthetics - even if it's entirely fictional. Writer Koji Takada and director Eiichi Kudo examine the honour/brotherhood tension between two bad men (the cop is so deep undercover that, except for his superiors who have also grown suspicious of him, everyone treats him as a gangster and he behaves accordingly) without going too over the top, and the film does exceptional job capturing the pulse of the city and streets. Bunta Sugawara has a great supporting role as Chinese (!) drug boss. The film's main flaw? It actually feels too short at 93 minutes!



















Caps from the Netflix Japan version. This has also been on Toei Channel but I wasn't wise enough to record it because a certain D suggested the film was no good...

[HungFist]

TV Review / Not Available on DVD

Impact: Prostitution Capital (衝撃!売春都市) (1975)
G-man Tatsuo Umemiya infiltrates a narcotics/prostitution racket in a poorly crafted, but astonishingly on-your-face morality lesson. Structurally it's all over the place with zero charisma gangster Jo Shiraishi getting the lion's share of the screen time, and no real tension between him and Umemiya, however the film has something else in its pocket. The first questionable highlight comes in form of a disgusting educational shock footage accompanying a doctor's explanation to a woman how she's got syphilis from sleeping with strangers and is going to die a horrible death after her body deforms. And even this scene pales in comparison to the jaw dropping moral punch ending that must be seen to be believed! The film features the real life anti drugs/prostitution/sexually transmitted diseases campaigner Tsusai Sugawara as Umemiya's boss. There was a trio of entertaining Sonny Chiba films (A Narcotics Agent's Ballad, Terrifying Flesh Hell, Tokyo-Seoul-Bangkok Drug Triangle, 1972-1973) "based on" the guy’s ramblings, but in true Toei fashion the films were exploitative and seductive enough to occasionally beat the “purpose”. In Impact, however, Sugawara's pathos was back with a vengeance. The film was made in collaboration with his “Three Evils Prevention Association”.

Opening card. Rough translation: Made in collaboration with Tsusai Sugawara’s “Three Evils Prevention Association”
“Drugs, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Prostitution”



Tsusai Sugawara

[HungFist]

TV Review / Not Available on DVD

Female (Mesu) (牝) (1964)
An amazingly convoluted, but breathtakingly filmed tale of a disturbed young woman (Mako Midori) spending her nights with a married man and spying on his wife during the daytime. The lonely wife then seeks consolation from an attorney, who just happens to be Midori's father! And it only gets worse from there on. This feels like a mid-60s Toei film co-directed by Wong Kar-wai and Shinya Tsukamoto. There were comparable Tatsuo Umemiya pictures made in the same time period (e.g. Youth of the Night series in 1965-1968), but none of them were quite as twisted this. This is highly entertaining despite its melodramatic convolution, shocking even by today’s standards, and packed with lyrical images of Midori wandering in the night. The film noir esque cinematography is incredible and there’s an amazing scene where Midori is on TV “spying” the married couple through the television screen while they’re making love. For another equally good Mako Midori / Yusuke Watanabe film see Two Bitches, also from 1964.

[HungFist]

VoD Review / No DVD available

Kôkôsei burai hikae: Kanjirû Muramasa (高校生無頼控 感じるゥ～ムラマサ) (1973)
Part 3. The last and least of the three Muramasa films. This time Muramasa saves a girl from drowning herself, then proceeds to demonstrate the beauty of living by making love to her (he forgets to ask permission). Moments later he's selling school girl panties and agrees to molest one while being photographed to trick a clueless parent (yakuza baddie Toru Abe!) to pay abortion money! Great opening half hour, naughty and perverted to the bone, yet plays out like a cheerful family film. These kinds of boys' fantasies would be impossible to film in Western countries. Too bad from halfway on the film completely loses its steam. One problem is the plot - there isn't one. Basically Muramasa has shagged too many girls and there's trouble with boxer/kendo kid Eiji Go & the silly gang who are protecting the honour of one of Muramasa's conquests and intend to propose another one. At the end there is a bad car chase and some fighting, all of it purely comedic.

Yes, Yuriko Hishimi is in it, briefly. I think I spotted her for about 15 seconds as one of the school girls.


Jiro Okazaki, Eiji Go








Toru Abe!


Go again


Go also playing his own grandfather in a painting, hah!

[HungFist]

TV Review / Not Available on DVD

Outlaw Corps (ごろつき部隊) (1969)
Toei's Where Eagles Dare / The Dirty Dozen mash-up with a squad of lifetime and death row prisoners (Tomisaburo Wakayama, Minoru Oki and a whole load of regular Toei villains) sent behind enemy lines with sarge Bunta Sugawara to free Osman Yusuf (gets killed before he manages to say a single line) and another prisoner of war. The limited budget and locations pale in comparison to the Western counterparts, but the concept and characters are pretty cool and the gunplay action not as haphazard as in some 60s Toei films. One of the film's charms is that although the characters are turned into heroes, they still retain a bit of their bad guy grit throughout the film. Quite an entertaining time waster.

[HungFist]

TV Review / Not Available on DVD



My short history of missing this film:
2014: Meika Seri retrospective in Laputa Asagaya (Tokyo). Skipped the screening in favor of a Shunji Iwai triple feature.
2016: Meika Seri retrospective in Cinema Vera (Tokyo). Missed the first screening due to a delayed flight.
2016: Meika Seri retrospective in Cinema Vera (Tokyo). I was seated for the second screening, but I got so sick I had to leave before it started.
2018: Meika Seri retrospective in Shin bungeiza(Tokyo). I wasn't in town.

Then finally:
2019: My girlfriend's mother mails me a copy

The Turkish Bathhouses of Japan (札幌・横浜・名古屋・雄琴・博多　トルコ渡り鳥) (1975)
A Toei documentary exploration of "Turkish baths". The film features toruko-wanderer Meika Seri employing herself in the country’s many brothels in a fictional story into which documentary footage and interviews with real pros are inserted. Shingo Yamashiro narrates, Tsusai Sugawara pops up, and there’s footage of foreign prostitutes and a visit to a women’s toruko with male workers. The most obscure thing we learn: 90% toruko girls own a pet because they are lonely! Some of the lengthy footage with bubble specialist sex workers doing their thing is also interesting, though marred by tons of fogging, and this being an exploitation doc you can never be quite sure what’s staged and to what extent. The structure works pretty well anyway, with real footage balanced with a fictional road movie drama and not too many boring moments. A bit better than Sadao Nakajima’s similar pictures from a few years earlier. Note: Turkish baths were re-named into Soaplands in the 80s after the Turks took offence. The younger Japanese are no longer familiar with the term “toruko”.

* I suppose the name change is understandable considering how difficult it made for Turkish people to introduce themselves… “Nuri Bilge Ceylanと申します。トルコから来ました”



Ryûmei Azuma


Real toruko ladies. The dark skinned girl says she's half Mexican. I don't know about the white girl.




Our old friend, Three Evils Prevention fighter Tsusai Sugawara


Meika Seri


... with some serious boyfriend/pimp drama!




Amazing closing shot with Seri peeing from a train


Toei has started adding this disclaimer noting the work is presented uncut although some of its contents may not be politically correct by today's standards. Also note that the film has been downgraded from 18 to 15, something they've been doing a lot recently with 60s and 70s ero flicks.

[Guro Taku]

TV Review / Not Available on DVD



Did the Red Bird Escape? (赤い鳥逃げた？) (1973)
Two twenty-something guys (Yoshio Harada and Masaaki Daimon) who refuse to grow up and conform keep afloat by means of small-time crime. They eventually meet a young woman (Kaori Momoi) who claims to be appartment-sitting for a rich girl. After fucking around for a while (both literally and figuratively) she reveals that she actually is that rich girl and suggests that they blackmail her father by claiming she was kidnapped. This being a gritty 70ies flick, don't go in expecting a happy end. This is one of director Toshiya Fujita's trademark gritty youth films. His inventive camerawork is well represented but there's no rock soundtrack this time around. One of my favorite scenes sees Daimon and Momoi put on a "porn show" for a bunch of country bumpkins and Fujita cuts from their antics to Harada, who suffers from impotence and can't participate, vent his frustration and anger by racing their car precariously through the streets. And then there's the ending, which is my favorite part of the film. I'll spoiler-tag my thoughts on it for obvious reasons. The showdown takes place at a container yard and has our protagonists' car chased and eventually cornered by several police vehicles. For some reason - as someone who works at a container yard I assure you this is very strange - a large crowd of all ages gathers for this event, including very young children. As the cops shout that they won't tolerate this sort of behaviour and open fire on the car and the people inside, eventually causing it to go up in flames, Fujita keeps cutting to the crowd of onlookers and shooting several close-ups of the young kids' faces. My interpretation is that with "this behaviour" the cops as ultimate representatives of authority and state not merely mean attempting to escape arrest with a retired cop in the trunk but the general nonconformity of their worldview and actions so far. As for the crowd of onlookers, I suspect the events would mean different things for each of them. The older ones may feel vindicated, since they became productive members of society long ago. And for the kids it must serve as a dire warning not to rebel when they reach a certain age. It is a bitter, angry ending that stuck with me ever since I saw it. Fujita really hammers it home by finally showing the burned out husk of their car towed away to the junkjard, like so many smashed hopes set on fire and burned to a crisp.

[HungFist]

I saw Did the Red Bird Escape? in 35mm a year or two ago. One of my favourites from Fujita. Also not hurt by the fact Kaori Momoi spends about 60% of the movie topless

[HungFist]

VoD Review / Not Available on DVD / BD

Taiyo no koibito: Agnes Lum (太陽の恋人 アグネス・ラム) (1976)

Here is a Toei curiosity that sometimes misleadingly pops up in Pinky Violence context (probably because it was briefly featured in Sugisaku and Uechi’s Pinky Violence book). This isn't actually a movie, but a 25 min gravure film / Hawaii travel video with local beauty Agnes Lum. Japanese men in the mid-70s had such a crush on Lum, whom they knew via magazines and commercials, that Toei sent their action director Atsushi Mihori (Criminal Woman: Killing Melody, 1973) to Hawaii to film this piece. It was released theatrically in a youth themed triple bill with Gang of Men: Delinquent Prison and Detonation: 750cc Tribe on Sept. 15, 1976.

This is difficult to evaluate from a cinematic perspective - it largely lacks one - but for what it's worth, Lum looks stunning and (the costume department) has an impeccable taste in women’s swimwear. She doesn’t do much more than walk around on beaches and town streets, eat ice cream and feed animals. There’s also some slow-motion running in bikini, and plenty of eye candy from the Hawaii locations. Lum comes off as very sweet and naïve: the interview scene where they try to force her talk about her body feels nasty and exploitative… unless her reactions and awkwardness were scripted for the pleasure of sadist Japanese viewers.

[HungFist]

VoD Review. Not Available on DVD / BD



Gang vs. Gang: The Red and Black Blues (ギャング対ギャング 赤と黒のブルース) (1972)
Stylish, well written tale of a to-be Olympic sharpshooter (Koji Tsuruta in one of his best later day roles) who wastes a blackmailing chinpira scum, then has a gangster boss (Noboru Ando in a very good role) waiting for him at the prison gates four years later. The gang could use a man of such talent. There's the usual Junya Sato surplus of gangster brutality, as well as all players from cops to gangsters to civilians laid on the chess table, but also a romantic ninkyo breeze with Tsuruta a man of honour who falls in love with a suicidal woman (Hiroko Fuji, the weakest performance in the film) who witnessed him commit an assassination. One of the rare films that successfully merges bits of ninkyo romanticism with jitsuroku grit, producing a tough film with heart instead of a mediocre halfway-there effort that was the more common outcome of this formula.

[HungFist]

VoD Review / Not Available on DVD

Brothers of Capones (舶来仁義　カポネの舎弟) (Japan, 1970) [VoD] – 3.5/5
Completely ridiculous, and yet superbly entertaining action comedy non-sense with Tomisaburo Wakayama as Kuriyama Capone who learned his trade under Al Capone in Chicago. The film follows his first venture to Japan with gangster brothers Frank (Shingo Yamashiro) and Joe (Fumio Watanabe). They all speak heavily American accented Japanese with bits of English here and there, something that caused my brain to melt at least a dozen times. And if that isn’t enough, the film has them watching a Tomisaburo Wakayama flick in cinema (“who’s that guy, some C-grade actor!”) and being chased by gangster and the FBI, including the granddaughter of Eliot Ness (played by a blonde actress who is actually pretty good!). The whole thing is a good amount of fun, the performances especially (Wakayama, Yamashiro, Watanabe in a rare heroic role), making this one of routine director Takashi Harada’s best pictures.

[DenPryan]

Haha, I was very amused by the fragment in the cinema, Tomisaburo Wakayama asked his brothers - "Who is the actor on the screen?" They tell him, "This Is Tomisaburo Wakayama". He asks again, "Is He a big star?" Brothers respond - "Yes, he very popular".
There is a second part - Capone no Shatei Yamato Damashii / カポネの舎弟 やまと魂 / Brothers of Capone 2 (1971), it was also shot by Takashi Harada.

Both parts a few years ago were shown with English subtitles on the Hawaiian TV channel NGN.

[HungFist]

Yep. Here's my take on it.

VoD Review / Not Available on DVD

Capone's Younger Brother: Heart and Speculation (カポネの舎弟　やまと魂) (Japan, 1971) [VoD] – 2.5/5
Lesser, but still modestly entertaining sequel. Wakayama is wonderfully bastardly here, but has to do without Chicago bros. Yamashiro & Watanabe and the film is just that much less fun. It's also a little bogged down by an out-of-place environmental message. In return one does get Willie Dorsey (who would go on to lose his balls in The Street Fighter) in a rather big role as Capone's right hand man. There's a legion of other gaijin as well, Osman Yusuf among them of course. The rating could be a notch higher on a good day.





Can't be killing people all the time. Tomoko Mayama from Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance


Willie with his balls still intact






Osman

[HungFist]

TV Review / Not Available on DVD

Bad Angel (ずべ公天使) (1960)
Dir. Shigehiro Ozawa
Cast: Mitsue Komiya, Ken Takakura, Michiko Hoshi, Toru Abe

This was probably Toei's first delinquent girl film. Five minutes into it we're already treated a massive street brawn between two delinquent girl gangs. Charming chap Ken Takakura is a young intellectual of a modern business oriented yakuza group whose game centre the female delinquents populate. Takakura comes up with a plan: take the gals on a hot springs trip and educate them in arts - could rehabilitate them and turn into a profit in the long run.

This is surprisingly innocent and naïve – Takakura’s group comes out like a bloody social support organization at times – and lacking the more exploitative edge of Shintoho's similar films from the same era. But Shigehiro Ozawa helms it with such energy and breeze, even inserting a musical scene in the middle of the film, that you can't help but to be highly entertained by it.

The girls are cute and cool, punching bad guys and doing yakuza greetings when they’re not singing or bathing (in a scene that actually features a brief glimpse of topless nudity! That took me by a surprise) although as a typical concession of the era it’s still Takakura who gets to play the hero.

Note the Japanese title “Zubeko tenshi” (“Delinquent Angel”), which is very similar to Toei’s later “Zubeko bancho” (Delinquent Girl Boss) (1970-1971).

[HungFist]

VoD Review / Not Available on DVD

The Scoundrel Takes a Trip (旅に出た極道) (1969)
Dir. Junya Sato
Cast: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Bunta Sugawara, Shingo Yamashiro, Minoru Oki, Fumio Watanabe, Reiko Oshida, Yumiko Katayama, Osman Yusuf.

Part 5 in the series. Gokudo goes Hong Kong! He bonds with local gangster Minoru Oki and tries to down the Hong Kong international drug syndicate to save the daughters of China (whom he's been shagging).

Junya Sato took helm of this entry. It's not up to his usual level, but as a harmless time waster this is not too bad. There’s some nice location work, less humour than in some other entries, a fine cast and we’ve even got Reiko Oshida and Yumiko Katayama (briefly) in the film. But what really makes the film is a single stunning scene of characterization for villain Watanabe that director Sato seemingly pulls out of nowhere 15 minutes before the film ends.

Unfortunately there's also the irritating action cliché where machine gun shooters don't shit no matter how many bullets they spread.

But anyway, this is my favourite of the seven Gokudos I’ve seen.



Yamashiro, Sugawara, Wakayama


Oshida


Katayama




Osman!


Watanabe. This scene is sooo good!


0.2 seconds before the film's most ridiculous death scene..

[HungFist]

TV Review / Not Available on DVD

Flower Cards Chivalry (花札渡世) (Japan, 1967)
An absolutely astonishing art house ninkyo yakuza film by Masashige Narusawa. Wandering gambler Tatsuo Umemiya runs into a young swindler woman Haruko Wanibuchi working with old man Junzaburo Ban. They are both arrested by detective Ko Nishimura. A year later Umemiya is staying with gangster Tatsuo Endo when he comes across that woman and her partner again. Endo lusts for both her and his own daughter, while Endo's looney yakuza brother Toru Abe has a thing for Endo's daughter, who in turn has her eye on Umemiya, and is willing to annihilate people standing on her way. And here lies one of the film's remarkable departures from the standard ninkyo efforts: it doesn't have a third party villain, nor a clear distinction between good and evil. Strikingly shot in black and white, it's bursting romantic emotion while also exploding into shocking carnage. It has lengthier, more detailed gambling scenes than any other yakuza film I've seen, and an absolutely astonishing musical score! Had mid-90s Wong Kar Wai found a time portal to 60s Toei Studios, he would have made this film. Call it the Ashes of Time of ninkyo yakuza films. Or the Pale Flower of ninkyo films. Or just masterpiece!