Category: Japan

Survive Style 5+ (Gen Sekiguchi, 2004)

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“What is your function in life?” It is, after all, quite a difficult question as an air stewardess (Tae Kimura) points out when interrogated by an irate British hitman (Vinnie Jones), and perhaps one that most people never really think about. Indeed, many of those questioned struggle with the meaning of “function”, replying with the most obvious answer of their occupation or job title without really considering any deeper implications or whether their existence is really meaningful. The hitman seems to have a secondary mission of eliminating those whom he deems “unnecessary”, while simultaneously giving his only sign of approval to a man who straightforwardly tells him that he doesn’t have one.

Gen Sekiguchi’s Survive Style 5+ is full of this kind of questioning but ultimately a tale of how one learns to survive in an often absurd world. Like many films from the mid-2000s, it cuts between several interwoven plot threads that at first seem nonsensical but finally coalesce into a complete whole. An artist (Tadanobu Asano) repeatedly kills his wife (Reika Hashimoto) who is forever trying to kill him in bizarre ways only for her to respawn back at their very weird Western-style country lodge in the woods. An ad executive (Kyoko Koizumi) becomes fed up with her vain hypnotist boyfriend (Hiroshi Abe) who mocks her career. A salaryman (Ittoku Kishibe) is hypnotised to think that he’s a chicken, and a trio of burglars (Kanji Tsuda, Yoshiyuki Morishita, Jai West) deal with repressed emotion and romantic longing. 

They are all to some extent trying to find some way to survive along with a sense of purpose in their lives. Ad executive Yoko is forever coming up with zany ideas for TV adverts that she records on her dictaphone, sniggering to herself at their surreal humour though she is the only one who finds them funny and her work is often dismissed by her corporate clients who complain that her ads don’t do anything to inform the prospective customer about the nature of the product. Sekiguchi was himself also a director of TV adverts which informs the film’s short and snappy style, and Yoko’s artistic frustrations perhaps echo his own as she tries to fulfil herself creatively while meeting the client’s demands. 

The CEO of the pharmaceuticals company she’s working with (Shinichi Chiba) is forever taking “emergency” calls from his wife about such important issues as the bulb having gone in the bathroom which he treats with the upmost seriousness while admitting that he really doesn’t know how to address any of these domestic issues. Similarly, the salaryman is prevented from living a full family life because of the demands of his job, but becomes a temporary hero after getting tickets to see the sold-out hypnotist. In someways, he might even be happier as a bird which after all offers more “freedom” if only he could learn to fly. While his wife and daughter are most interested in curing him so that he can become a stereotypical salaryman again and fulfil the roles of father and husband by providing for the family, only his son determines to accept his father’s new reality and love him for who he is now. 

The family’s home is designed with an artificial quality giving it the appearance of the set for a TV sitcom, bearing out the ersatz nature of conventional family life in which everyone is forced to bear out their particular “function” without imbuing it with much meaning. When the burglars break in, they too inhabit this space as if they were children who’ve come over to play by sitting down and playing cards rather than looting the place, though it turns out the family don’t actually have very much worth stealing. While Tsuda is forever taking calls from a girlfriend, Morishita and J exchange a series of longing looks but are otherwise unable to express their feelings for each other due to lingering societal homophobia and emotional vulnerability. Only when challenged by the hitman are they able to express their feelings after questioning their own “function in life”.

Jones was clearly hired for his hardman image which he’d successfully brought off the football pitch and into a series of gangster movies in the late 90s, imbuing each of his lines with an absurd intensity which is equally matched by Yoshiyoshi Arawakawa’s comical attempts to echo his intimidating speech patterns as his interpreter though without the physical presence to pull it off. The hitman is quite clearly a harbinger of death, but at the same time it’s his existential probing that points the way towards survival as his various targets are forced to consider what their “function in life” really is and if they’re living in ways that are meaningful and fulfilling. The film’s anarchic production design and deadpan humour add to the sense of surreality as Sekiguchi gleefully ricochets between one storyline and another looking for new modes of survival in an increasingly absurd world.

Survive Style 5+ is currently screening in select UK cinemas and released on UHD/Bluray on 19th October courtesy of Third Window Films.

Trailer (dialogue free)

We’re Both Grooms (僕もアイツも新郎です。Koji Tanaka, 2022)

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Ryosuke (Shono Hayama) is about to marry the love of his life, Mizuki (Hiroki Iijima), but there’s just one snag. He’s never got round to telling his family or any of his friends that he’s gay, and a sizeable contingent of the wedding party are under the assumption that he’s going to be marrying a woman. A recent addition to the wedding farce genre, Koji Tanaka’s We’re Both Grooms (僕もアイツも新郎です。, Boku mo Aitsu no Shinro desu.) explores both the lingering homophobia in the contemporary society and the internalised shame and fear that prevents people from fully committing to what it is they really want out of life.

It is after all perhaps a little bit strange to meet your child’s intended for the first time at the wedding, but no one really seems to remark on the fact that they have no idea who the groom is supposed to be marrying. But then again, it seems Ryosuke didn’t invite half of these people, they were reeled in by his overzealous mother who, like everyone else, has made a massive assumption. That in itself may imply that Ryosuke doesn’t have many friends. He doesn’t seem to have invited anyone to the wedding aside from his boss, the headmaster of the school where he works, whom he also hasn’t told he’s gay leading to some last minute wedding speech panic. Though his boss is keen to assure him he’s fine with that sort of thing, it’s clear his original speech was full of misogynistic jokes and male banter, while his attempts to correct himself reveal a latent homophobia.

Meanwhile, a childhood friend, again invited by Ryosuke’s mother, is on the one hand hurt he never shared this part of his life with her, and resentful as it seems she had romantic designs on him that prevented her from pursuing other relationships. Mizuki has also invited an ex to the wedding who takes Ryosuke to task for treating Mizuki like a dirty secret, asking how they can live a happy life together if Ryosuke can’t even acknowledge their relationship in public let alone tell the world of his love for Mizuki. Mizuki is also starting to feel guilty and conflicted, realising that he’s insensitively forced Ryosuke into coming out because of his desire to paper over his own anxiety about their relationship through a public commitment ceremony. Japan does not currently legally recognise same-sex marriages, but Mizuki is hoping that the wedding will clarify their relationship status and what they mean to each other, only it seems to have backfired. 

The main obstacle is Ryosuke’s traditionalist, civil servant father (Mantaro Koichi) who outright tries to stop the wedding claiming that his son is just “easily led” and must have been led astray by Mizuki. While all of Mizuki’s family know and accept that he is gay and have also warmed to Ryosuke, Ryosuke’s family do not seem to understand and cannot get their heads around the idea of two men being in a committed relationship despite the grandmother’s public telling off of her son and unexpected announcement that she too is bisexual and that her first love was another woman. Surprisingly, Ryosuke’s father explains that he used to be a delinquent so he faced familial disapproval when he married too but was warmly supported by his wife. Though he confesses that he really just wanted to see Ryosuke marry someone who would make him happy, it takes him quite a bit longer to figure out that he’s trying to do just that. 

The biggest problem remains, however, Ryosuke himself who has evidently not reached the level of self-acceptance that would allow him to fully commit to a romantic relationship, as he’s advised by the ever-helpful wedding planner trying to keep the event on track. Only once he becomes more sure of himself, can tell people proudly that he is gay and that Mizuki is the love of his life, do those around begin to see the authenticity of their relationship and accept it as they would any other. Even Mizuki’s incredibly stiff father eventually comes around with a speech to the effect that the true beauty of life lies in diversity. Despite the farcical comedy at its centre, the film ends on a surprisingly touching note as the couple reaffirm their love for each other and also see it embraced by those around them.

Trailer (English subtitles)

The Blue Pearl (青い眞珠, Ishiro Honda, 1951)

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An ama diver finds herself caught between tradition and modernity when a handsome young man arrives from the city in the debut narrative feature from Ishiro Honda, The Blue Pearl (青い眞珠, Aoi Shinju). Honda became fascinated by the lives of ama divers while filming a documentary about the Ise-Shima National Park and bought the rights to a novel by Katsuro Yamada in order to make use of the underwater filming techniques he’d developed to capture scenes of the women diving. In its way, the film also has an ethnographical component in incorporating elements of traditional village life such as the festival featuring Kagura dancing and puppetry along with ancient superstition.

It’s clear from the opening scenes that Nishida (Ryo Ikebe) is going to be a corrupting force in this environment as he disrespects the sea immediately after disembarking from the boat by petulantly throwing his empty cigarette packet into it. This action may make it seem as if he’s not altogether happy to be here, though he seems to adapt well enough to island life serving double duty as an assistant lighthouse keeper and schoolmaster. Apparently arriving on the same boat is a woman who is returning to the village after having run away to Tokyo. Riu (Yuriko Hamada) represents another source of corruption and is not fully accepted by the other islanders having become to a degree “foreign” in her urbanisation. Unlike the other women, she wears Western clothes and puts on makeup while behaving in a brazen and flirtatious manner. Despite having trained as an ama diver since childhood, she is no longer able to dive with the same dexterity as the other women and constantly brings in poor hauls or rotten shellfish.

According to lighthouse keeper Fujiki (Takashi Shimura) who offers some ethnographical detail while explaining the ama diver tradition to Nishida, a woman’s worth before marriage is largely determined by her skill in diving. Married couples mostly work together with the man operating the boat and reeling the divers back in from their deep dives. As such, it requires a high degree of trust as the diver must be sure the person on the surface will reel them in if they get into difficultly. Noe is currently the top earner among the women, but this is also partially because she feels herself to be something of an outsider. Her father was not from the island and eventually left her mother for another woman to start a new life in Hokkaido, while her mother also left and has not been seen since. She worked hard to become a good diver so that she could support her mother should she return in her old age, but is also tiring of the ama life and fearful of the prospect that there is nothing beyond it. At present, she’s paired with a local man, Shintaro (Kan Yanagiya), whom the islanders expect her to marry though she appears not to want to.

Her attraction to Nishida is then partly that for the outside world and an escape from the village. The local superstition against marrying outsiders seems to suggest that they can never really be fully accepted by the community and it is generally assumed that they will eventually leave rather than choose to live on the island. As Fujiki points out, diving makes up a significant proportion of the local economy, and so they do not want to risk losing a skilled diver who may choose to leave with a romantic partner from elsewhere. The superstition then serves a practical purpose in discouraging the ama from leaving, though it’s unclear to what degree they really believe in the retribution of the Dragon God. Despite Nishida’s prodding, Noe clearly believes in it to some degree as she eventually asks a shamaness for advice, but also disregards it when she’s told that she ought to give up on Nishida as nothing good will come from their relationship.

This superstition is perhaps why she comes to doubt Nishida when he unwisely agrees to dance with Riu after she walks into the lighthouse and puts on modern dance music to flirt with the other men. Riu does this originally out of jealously and resentment towards Noe who is regarded as the village’s golden girl but later claims to have developed feelings for Nishida, though her primary goal seems to be to ensure that Noe cannot have him. Noe, meanwhile, begins to lose her mind and starts diving recklessly claiming that she doesn’t care if she dies. The pair are positioned as diametrically opposed poles, the corrupted returnee from the city and pure-hearted island girl, yet in some senses Riu is also another possible future for Noe should she choose to leave the island alone. Both women are, in a sense, fighting for the different future that Nishida represents. He later suggests that he may leave to go to Hokkaido, the same destination as Noe’s father and in a certain way of thinking, still regarded as a new frontier society in contrast to the traditional life represented by the coastal village in the Ise peninsula. 

But pitted against each other, the two women eventually fall victim to the superstition in becoming obsessed with retrieving the blue pearl from the Dragon God’s well which is said to grant romantic fulfilment. Riu dives out too far and reaches the pearl first, but is trapped by a falling rock, perhaps the Dragon God’s revenge for leaving the island and abandoning the sea. She calls out to Noe for help, but she either runs out of air before she is able to free her or wilfully chooses not to do so. Noe’s relationship with Nishida is then forever cursed, as she’s haunted by Riu’s frantic cries for help and her own sense of guilt while remaining uncertain if she could have saved Riu if she had really wanted to. In the end, the two women destroy each other because their desires cannot be reconciled nor is either one really complete without the other. Riu cannot to return to the world of the village nor live a settled married life with a man like Nishida, but neither can Noe reconcile her desire for a more interesting existence off the island with the island culture that lives inside her and the ingrained fear of the Dragon God. In the end, they must return to the sea. Honda makes full use of the expressionist possibilities of the landscape as raging waves seem to stand in for Noe’s tumultuous emotions culminating in a terrifying storm as she confronts Nishida in an attempt to ascertain his true feelings. Don’t mock the sea, Noe cautions Nishida on his arrival in town, though it’s equal parts the awesome power of nature and the inability to let go of ancient superstition that do for her in the end.

Suicide Troops of the Watchtower (望楼の決死隊, Tadashi Imai, 1943)

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Produced by Toho and Chosun Film Production Corporation, Suicide Troops of the Watchtower (望楼の決死隊, Boro no kesshitai) was intended as a piece of imperial propaganda promoting a sense of unity between Koreans and the Japanese who had annexed their country in 1910 and thereafter ruled in an oppressive and often brutal fashion. Not that you would know any of that from the film which is directed by committed communist Tadashi Imai while equally surprisingly crediting Choi In-gyu as an “assistant director”, though Choi was already an established and successful director of colonial films such as Tuition (1940) and Angels on the Street (1941). 

Like Tuition the film is almost entirely in Japanese, Korean having been banned onscreen by this point, though small smatterings of Korean are heard in the background. The film is set in 1935, but there are signs visible at certain points reminding people to “use only the national language,” eg. Japanese, though one of the Japanese officers has apparently learned Korean to better communicate with the local community. Likewise, though Korean actors also appear in the film, they are mainly in smaller parts with the most prominent roles being played by well-known Japanese stars. Nevertheless, Korean characters have not generally taken Japanese names, but are referred to by the Japanese reading of the Chinese characters with which their names are written. Thus, the sister of the Korean border patrol officer who is killed is referred to as Eishuku (played by Korean actress Kim Shin-jae), rather than as Yong-suk. Meanwhile, another man remarks that if he called himself “Hayashi” he might feel more Japanese, while his wife has become accustomed to wearing Japanese kimono.

The earliest scenes of the film capture the idyllic pastorality of the Korean landscape and are intended to extend a degree of exoticism to the mainland Japanese audience who are likely less familiar with Korea or Korean culture. This is also true of the early scene in which members of the border patrol hold a welcome party for Asano (Hideo Saito) which takes place at a traditional Korean home. The men eat and drink outside sitting at low tables while the Japanese soldiers attempt to learn a Korean folksong taught to them by Kin. These scenes seek to paint colonial life as a more genial form of cultural exchange brokered by friendliness and respect even though in reality expressions of Koreanness are generally discouraged while the people are brutally oppressed and economically exploited. 

Unlike some similar films, however, Suicide Troops of the Watchtower presents Korean and Japanese people as equals who are fighting for the Japanese empire together. Though they are also portrayed as simple, rural people, the Koreans are never seen to be stupid or incapable and are overall honest and kind if grateful to the Japanese border patrol officers for protecting them from the bandits. In some surprising ways, the film at times presents a more progressive view of society than might be expected as the border patrol is universally supportive of Eishuku’s desire to become a doctor with one of the officers selling off his rice field to ensure she can continue her education after her brother’s death. The implication might be that this is an opportunity afforded to her by the “civilising” force of Japanese colonialism, but she is nevertheless encouraged to become an independent working woman who will also use her skills in support of the empire. 

On the other hand, the Chinese characters seen in the film are all played by Japanese actors and are generally viewed with a degree of suspicion. Cafe owner Wanryu (Ichiro Sugai) has crossed the border expressly to escape the violent bandits of Manchuria, but is still mistrusted by the border patrol despite repeatedly pledging his loyalty to them. When a man in stereotypical Chinese dress with a wounded arm turns up in Wanryu’s cafe and ends up killing officer Kin when challenged, suspicion falls on Wanryu. The Chinese population has essentially been characterised as the “other” and the force against which the Japanese and Koreans are unified, which somewhat undermines the final pronouncement that the bandit problem has been solved by the elimination of the border now that Japan has conquered Manchuria. 

Though they are described as “bandits” and it is said that they have been pushed into Korean territory by Japanese soldiers pursuing them, it easy to read these insurgents as Korean Independence fighters many of whom had gone into exile in China, particularly in Shanghai. Wanko, the estranged son of Wanryu, is not just a young man who ran off to live a life of banditry, but a guerrilla fighter resisting Japanese imperialism. His eventual conversion born the desire to avenge the death of his father at the hands of bandit leader Koryo who meant to kill Wanryu fearing he had betrayed them by warning his father of the imminent attack, is then depicted as a kind of homecoming as border patrol chief Takatsu (Minoru Takada) agrees to release him so that he can fight alongside them. 

To that extent, it might seem surprising that the film makes the bandits seem so powerful to the degree that they pose a genuine threat the security of the empire. Their assault is staged in a way that resembles Hollywood westerns. At the film’s conclusion, it really appears as if all is lost and the border patrol will be wiped out by the bandits, partly because they are clearly understaffed which would seem to be a strategic failure on the part of the authorities. Takatsu’s ever capable wife Yoshiko (Setsuko Hara) is seen lugging weaponry around bearing out the all hands on deck mentality. At the lowest moment, Takatsu gives his pistol to his wife with the intention that she use it on herself when they are overrun while the Korean residents make similar plans with a new mother preparing to smother her baby if the need arises. 

In the end they are saved by the timely arrival of reinforcements thanks to the efforts of the new arrival Asano who had been unable to cope with the harsh life on the border and was determined to quit. Even the one Korean who had subversively complained about being exploited as free labour by the entitled Japanese occupiers chips in to help so that the bandits are eventually defeated by the united force of Koreans and Japanese officers fighting side by side. Even so, the closing speech insists that the colonial authorities will now continue with their ideal of bringing “order” to Korea. Commander Takatsu proves his commitment by giving up  the opportunity to return home to see his dying mother, while his wife becomes a maternal figure to the local community. Released in 1943, the film is perhaps an advocation for unity born of increasing desperation as Japan suffered repeated defeat and domestic strain, preparing its audience for the necessity of defending themselves against a similar onslaught while suggesting that all must work together to save the nation.

Revenge of the Pearl Queen (女真珠王の復讐, Toshio Shimura, 1956)

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Born amid the labour disputes that engulfed Toho in the late 1940s, Shintoho began as a rather lofty endeavour mostly geared towards artistic films, but after a series of box office failures was soon in the red. Impresario Mitsugu Okura was brought in to turn the company around, but his ethos was decidedly populist. He shifted the studio away from the auteurist focus of its early days towards the racy dramas and ghost films with which it would become associated. 

Revenge of the Pearl Queen (女真珠王の復讐, Onna shinju-o no fukushu) was key to this transformation and made a star out of its leading lady Michiko Maeda who had been discovered working in the kimono department of the Mitsukoshi department store. Though sometimes billed as the first mainstream feature to depict full female nudity, what it really sells is the promise rather than the reality. The nudity in the film is generally abstract or artistic, shooting Maeda from behind and at a distance amid nature or capturing brief shots of her rear as her skirt flutters in the wind. Otherwise, she is seen in loose, torn clothing or with her hands covering her bare breasts as she, ironically, tries to escape from a series of men trying to assault her.

Adapted from a novel by Yoshihisa Aoki, the film is also inspired by a real life incident in which a group of men and one woman were marooned on Anatahan island at the end of the war. The men eventually ended up killing each other over the woman. The same incident inspired the 1953 film by Josef von Sternberg. Natsuki (Michiko Maeda), an office worker, is engaged to diligent employee Kizaki (Ken Utsui) and about to undertake a trip abroad with her boss, Asamura (Susumu Fujita). An early scene sees their passports arrive with some fanfare as it was still difficult at this time for ordinary people to acquire one or indeed to travel outside of Japan. But it soon turns out that her boss has an ulterior motive. Kizaki is framed for the murder of the company president, while Asamura first attempts to blackmail Natsuki into entering a sexual relationship with him, then tries to assault her when she refuses. She manages to get away from him, but he chases her and she ends up being thrown overboard.

She then washes up on an island and is “rescued” by five shipwrecked sailors. Three of them are desperate to rape her, while the oldest of the men Ishizuka (Saburo Sawai) is against it and tries to protect her along with his son-in-law to be Yuzo (Shigeru Amachi). Ishizuka takes the men to task and asks them how they could show their faces in Japan having done something so heinous, but they just laugh at him. In some ways, this seems to be an echo of wartime atrocities and the fishermen stand-ins for men who did terrible things overseas and then were able to forget about it and live normal lives in post-war Japan. The same is true of Asamura whose wartime service in intelligence is often referenced, though his subordinate Noguchi (Tetsuro Tanba) later suggests he’s embellished his record. Asamura isn’t even his real name, though he’s been able to build a business empire for himself largely based on fraud, tax evasion, forgery, and apparently also drug smuggling. He used Kizaki as a foil to kill his boss and take over the company, while hoping to also bed Natsuki at the same time.

Nevertheless, after the three aspiring rapists turn on each other and are killed, Natsuki discovers a wealth of riches under the sea while attempting to save one of them from a whirlpool. Spending her entire time diving for pearls, she becomes incredibly wealthy and is able to rebrand herself as “Helen Minami”, a Japanese-American “pearl queen”, on her return to Japan. Sharing her riches with Ishizuka and Yuzo, the trio plot revenge hoping to clear Kizaki’s name and expose Asamura’s corruption. They use the money to attack them through the stock market while also discouraging their clients from doing business with them until the company is finally on its knees. The crows are coming home to roost for Asamura with Natsuki returning to expose all his wrong doing, though such occurrences were perhaps rare for other men like him in reality. By reinventing herself, Natsuki is at least able to cure this corruption and restore her innocent connection with Kizaki in a dramatic nightclub showdown in which justice is finally served.

Steel & Lead (鉄と鉛, Kazuhiro Kiuchi, 1997)

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A policeman turned detective gets an unexpected shot at redemption after being sentenced to death by a yakuza boss Kazuhiro Kiuchi’s stylish action thriller, Steel & Lead (鉄と鉛, Tetsu to Namari). A manga artist best known for creating the Be-Bop High School series, Kiuchi also made his mark on V-Cinema with genre hits Carlos and Joker. Steel & Lead has a true hardboiled sensibility and is set in a Japan which seems to be echoing New York with steam pouring into streets and taking place in a rundown urban environment.

The unnamed detective (Tsunehiko Watase) is apparently the only one in town. He falls foul of the boss of the Hamaken gang, Hamanishi (Sei Hiraizumi), after his son is murdered by a jealous lover that the detective unwittingly helped find him having taken what she said at face value, believing that she was his pregnant wife fed up with his philandering. The dead man’s actual wife was shocked by his death that she miscarried. Her son spent only 22 hours and three minutes on this earth, which is exactly the amount of time that Hamanishi gives the detective to get his affairs in order, threatening to kill his estranged 17-year old daughter if he tries to run.

The 17-year-old daughter whom the detective hasn’t seen in years is never seen and mentioned only briefly, but hints at the detective’s fall from grace after having left the police force. His estrangement from her might be why he decides to help a schoolgirl, Miyuki (Ayana Sakai), who comes to him with a request to find her missing brother, Yoichi (Terunori Miyazaki). Yoichi has a drugs conviction and suddenly disappeared a month ago while their mother is seriously ill and awaiting an operation. The detective originally turns her down, explaining that Miyuki’s brother has almost certainly fallen back into drugs and that finding him would be both expensive and potentially dangerous. Nevertheless, having accepted that he will die by Hamanishi’s hand the following day, the detective decides that his last act on earth will be to help the girl. During the course of the case, he also becomes to determined to rescue a kidnapped little boy and thereby restore his paternity vicariously despite having apparently failed to build a relationship with his biological daughter. 

Meanwhile, he begins to bond with the yakuza sent to keep an eye on him, Yano (Masataka Naruse), who is slowly won over by his righteousness and bravery in the face of death as he accepts his fate while growing determined to save the children. The detective’s investigation operates as a kind of chain reaction as he interviews various people who end up giving him the name of the next person to talk to in order to find Yoichi, finally leading him to a crazed drug dealer and user Kanemitsu (Yuji Kishimoto). Effectively dragged into this dark world of drugs and nihilism as borne out by Kanemitsu’s ad hoc decision to kidnap Takashi when his father can’t or won’t pay up immediately, the detective attempts to impose some kind of order but generally finds himself on the back foot. An attempt to chase Kanemitsu down by car simply ends with them effectively swapping vehicles as Kanemitsu manages to escape with his ride and the boy inside.

Just as Hamanishi’s grandson was killed by means of a kind of chain reaction, everything happens to the detective in sequence as he ricochets from one lead to the next. The film makes good use of Tsunehiko Watase’s cinematic history in casting him as a stoical detective who quietly accepts that he will die and resolves to sacrifice himself to save his daughter as well as the two surrogate children Miyuki and Takashi. Kiuchi excels at creating a noirish atmosphere, setting most of the film night and capturing its emptiness lit only by car headlights and neon. A stylish use of slow motion also lends the action a balletic quality otherwise at odds with the ugliness represented by Kanemitsu’s amoral nihilism. Despite his promises, Kanemitsu is quick to decide the boy must die anyway because he’s seen his face and knows his name because it’s written all over his hideout. The detective’s descent into hell is neatly timed to arrive at an eventual dawn in which he returns to a recognisably more ordered world in which innocent children like Takashi and Miyuki are safe from the darkness that surrounds them.

Trailer (no subtitles)

The Ghost Cat of Otama Pond (怪猫 お玉が池, Yoshihiro Ishikawa, 1960)

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Ghost cat films can often be about the ways in which the unresolved past continues to echo in the modern era. The curse is not lifted by vanquishing the evil spirit, but only by coming to an accommodation with and making recompense for wrongdoing in the distant past. This is especially the case when the film involves bookending sequences set in the modern day as in Yoshihiro Ishikawa’s Ghost Cat of Otama Pond (怪猫 お玉が池, Kaibyo Otama-ga-ike) in which a young couple accidentally become trapped within the orbit of a vengeful spirit after stopping off on their journey to get their parents’ approval for their marriage.

To that extent, the fact that they keep walking in circles and always end up back at the lake might hint at their mutual sense of anxiety about their decision to marry. “What will marriage be like if you’re like this now?” Tadahiko (Shozaburo Date) asks in exasperation, accusing Keiko (Noriko Kitazawa) of being “difficult” as she blames him for the decision to come to the lake in the first place and insists she’s too tired to continue walking. Their relationship is further strained by the lingering possibility that the parents may object to the marriage and that arriving late for their visit might not help their chances.

Their situation is mirrored in the circumstances that led to the creation of the ghost cat as related to Tadahiko by a local priest whom he consults after Keiko falls into a coma near the ruined house where they take shelter. Long ago, their ancestors Yochimaru (Shozaburo Date) and Kozasa (Noriko Kitazawa) were in love and wanted to marry, but their families were sworn enemies who strongly opposed the union. When Yachimaru was sent to serve in the capital swearing to call for Kozasa once he’d established himself, her villainous father Gensai (Yoichi Numata) moved against Yachimaru’s father Shinbei (Akira Nakamura) who had been attempting to protest the unreasonable taxes levied against local peasants who were on the verge of causing unrest. Consequently, they killed him and dumped his body in the pond. Shinbei’s beloved cat Tama drank some of his blood and became a ghost cat hellbent on avenging its master.

Tama is quite a popular name for a cat, but in this case it seems to be that it got its name from the lake where it was found which hints at a deeper origin story for this vengeful spirit. Unlike that in other similar films, it seems to have the power to manipulate people physically, at least to a degree, and also to pull them into an alternate reality as happens to Keiko during her coma when she is transported back to the Edo era before the house fell into ruins. It also seems to collect and unify various desires for vengeance though all against Gensai and his allies including the corrupt magistrate and entitled son Gorota (Hiroshi Shinguji). Though it originates with the death of Shinbei, the ghost cat later mainly takes the form of Kozasa after she drowns herself in the pond having been bewitched and seen the ghost of Yachimaru. 

In the end, this curse is only resolvable through the relationship between Keiko and Tadahiko. The ghost cat is vanquished by natural forces putting an end to the curse and releasing Keiko from her coma. After undergoing this experience, they are able to find their way back from the lake as Tadahiko resolves that they will still get married no matter what their parents say in direct contrast with Yachimaru and Kozasa who were constrained by samurai mores and unable to defy their families. In the modern era, they are free to live in the city and do as they please without needing to pay much attention to these outdated rituals, and so the ghost cat’s curse is no longer necessary as the rift is healed with their union just as if Yachimaru and Kozasa were finally united. Ishikawa conjures a suitably gothic, eerie atmosphere around the misty lake achieving ghost effects mainly through lighting in which they take on a familiar greenish hue. Away from the lake, however, it becomes more difficult to tell who is a ghost and who alive, while the ghost cat manipulates those that have wronged it into harming those they love and by extension themselves until finally laid to rest by a new generation resolving to leave the past behind.

Trailer (no subtitles)

Lady Sazen and the Drenched Swallow Sword (女左膳　濡れ燕片手斬り, Kimiyoshi Yasuda, 1969)

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A one-armed, one-eyed swordswoman finds herself fighting a war on two fronts after rescuing a young woman running away from mistreatment while herself pursued by a venal lord determined to get his hands on her ancestral blade in Kimiyoshi Yasuda’s jidaigeki adventure Lady Sazen and the Drenched Swallow Sword (女左膳　濡れ燕片手斬り, Onna Sazen: Nuretsubame Katate Giri). This wasn’t the first time the classic character of Tange Sazen had been re-envisioned as a woman, though it does appear to have been an attempt by Daiei to launch a Toei-style female-led period action series even if no further instalments were ever made.

Nicknamed “Lady Sazen”, Okin (Michiyo Yasuda) lives in a small shack with the former retainer, Gosuke (Yusaku Terashima), who raised her, and Yasu, a little boy they seem to have taken in. Gosuke provides for them by weaving baskets, while it remains true Okin occupies an awkward space in Edo-era society. Having lost an arm and bearing a large scar over one eye which is no longer functional, Okin likely could not marry even if she wanted to, nor are there any occupations which are open to her which is why the only way that she can make money is by participating in the male world of sword fighting and gambling, much to Gosuke’s disapproval. It’s also why she’s branded monstrous by her opponents simply for being a woman who is able to use a sword.

A mysterious wanderer remarks that it might have been better had she been born a man, a sentiment with which Okin agrees even as the man jokingly complains about her lack of femininity and subsequent inability to offer the customary hospitality to a guest. She also speaks roughly and drinks sake directly from a gourd. Nevertheless, she sympathises with Omitsu (Natsuko Oka) precisely because of the similarity in their life stories as two women wronged by the patriarchal samurai order. Omitsu was promised advancement through serving at the castle, but was then essentially trafficked by the Minister for Temples and Shrines who sent her to the corrupt priest at Hojoji temple where she was pressed into sex work. Having attempted to escape, she returns home to discover both her parents have been murdered after reusing to give up her location. Okin’s parents were similarly murdered by a greedy lord who demanded her father give up his sword and killed him when he refused.

There is a degree of homoerotic tension that arises between Omitsu and Okin as the pair settle in to a kind of domesticity, yet the film hints at a potential romance with sometime enemy Eizaburo (Kojiro Hongo) who has been sent by his lord who is obsessed with swords to get hold of Okin’s. Eizaburo later gives up on the idea after finding out her family history, but is also beholden to samurai mores especially when he learns his sister is to be sent to the corrupt priest as part of his lord’s plan to win favour and possible promotion from the high priest. As Okin now lives outside of samurai society, she cannot restore order within it, but is determined to use public pressure to flush the wrongdoers out by exposing the corruption through a series of pamphlets. The priest, however, is able to simply blame everything on his former co-conspirator thanks to the fact he has already installed his daughter as the shogun’s mistress. 

The unseen Lady Osode wields power in a different way, even if on the surface it looks like she too is being trafficked by her father. Refreshingly enough, Okin’s abilities as a one-armed swordswoman are totally respected. Though she may sometimes fight alongside men or they may provide assistance to her by buying time for her to escape, they never try to take over or get in her way. Rather, they treat her as an equal who is not in need of their protection. Though Eizaburo vows to give up the sword and abandon his samurai status, this is something that Okin can ever do because her duty lies in protecting her familial legacy in the form of the blade inherited from her father. She may be to a degree feminised in assuming a maternal position over Yasu, but maintains her independence in once again taking to the road in search of new adventures.

Tokai no Kaii 7-ji 03-bun (都会の怪異７時０３分, Sotoji Kimura, 1935)

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Though less well remembered now, Sotoji Kimura was a fairly prominent director at PCL in the 1930s having made Japan’s first musical Tipsy Life in 1933. A left-wing filmmaker who had been associated with keiko eiga and proletarian cinema, he nevertheless also later made imperial propaganda films and eventually decamped to Manei in Manchuria, remaining in China until 1953. Though he returned to filmmaking after his return to Japan, he never regained the same kind of success he’d experienced before the war.

Tokai no Kaii 7-ji 03-bun (Lit, “Urban Mystery: 7:03) seems like it may have been an outlier in his earlier career which doesn’t appear to have leaned much towards genre cinema. Though in some quarters billed as a horror film, likely because of the inclusion of the word “怪異” which implies some kind of strangeness or connection with the supernatural, it’s more of a noirish morality tale with an otherworldly edge as a compromised man attempting to reform himself after a living a dissolute life makes a series of poor choices after being given a copy of the following evening’s newspaper. A title card at the beginning states that the film is adapted from the final story written by Itsuma Maki penned especially for PCL. Itsuma Maki was a pen name used by Kotaro Hasegawa specifically for his true life mystery stories and his picture that is featured. Hasegawa had passed away from asthma at the young age of 35 a few months before the film’s release.

The story itself is said to be inspired by British writer Holloway Horn’s The Old Man, though all it seems to take from it is the morally compromised protagonist and the newspaper from the future. Miyamoto is in a bind because his girlfriend is pregnant and even with both of them working they’re struggling to make ends meet as is it. He calls his friend Tarama, who is a reporter, for financial help. It’s at this point that we learn both that Miyamoto used to live a fairly debauched life in the bars and clubs of Ginza and may also have had issues with gambling. He has, though, attempted to give all that up after meeting Noriko (Sachiko Chiba), a kimono-wearing respectable young woman who works in a shop selling Western fashions. They do not appear to be legally married, though Miyamoto refers to her as his wife, possibly because their financial situation does not allow it seeing as Noriko may have to give up her job if she married. Miyamoto is currently working for some kind of shady company that sells financial information and is in the middle of a dodgy deal with a government minister who suggests the nation is on the brink of financial collapse, but that they also have to at least appear financially responsible in a strange echo of Miyamoto’s situation.

Miyamoto has already tried asking his boss for financial assistance, but the boss is incredibly judgemental and unsympathetic. He calls Miyamoto irresponsible and suggests he’s embarrassed himself just by asking his employer for this kind of favour. To add insult to injury, he also tells him he should pay for the personal call he just made to Tarama on the office phone. When he’s approached by a strange old man on the street who seems to know his name, Miyamoto is rude at first and flat out tells him he doesn’t have money to buy the newspaper he’s selling. But the old man badgers him into taking one, claiming that it’s the edition from the following evening. The old man walks away smiling, remarking that Miyamoto is the only person on earth on who knows what’s going to happen tomorrow. Comparing the paper those of other passengers on the way home, Miyamoto confirms that it does seem to be from the following day, though when he disembarks he’s followed by hysterical laughter from the other passengers having repeatedly tried to confirm the day’s date along with obvious facts such as Friday 27th following Thursday 26th.

In any case, some of the newspaper headlines, including an earthquake and a fire breaking out at the bar where he was due to meet Tarama the following evening, come true further convincing him the content is accurate. An obvious solution presents itself in using the racing report to place a bet and win financial security for his new family, but Miyamoto doesn’t have the stake money. He only needs 20 yen, but even after waking a pawnbroker in the middle of the night, he can’t get more than eight. It’s at this point he becomes increasingly greedy and desperate, deciding to take advantage of a report of a late night robbery, staking the place out and robbing the thief as he makes his escape only to end up killing a seemingly innocent man who had even less in his wallet than he did.

That the man had no money perhaps further bears out the straitened nature of the contemporary economy, though it seems clear enough that most of Miyamoto’s issues are the result of his personal failings. Perhaps the best thing to do would have been to throw the newspaper away. His attempt to use it to cheat at gambling might be understandable, but his decision to rob a man who had committed theft as if that were somehow more morally justifiable than committing the crime himself directly is not really defensible. On realising he may have killed the man, he simply shrugs and says he was “scum” anyway, as he steals his disappointingly empty wallet. His repeated attempts to get rid of it, which all fail as the universe mysteriously returns it to him, may symbolise his desire to discard his crime, but in the end he cannot escape his fate just as he failed to overcome his nature when presented with the newspaper. Kimura conjures an atmosphere of increasing dread as Miyamoto becomes ever more sweaty and paranoid amid the foggy streets of Tokyo before beginning to realise that he may have got his priorities all wrong and should perhaps have paid more attention to what the newspaper had to say before accepting its dubious bargains.

Wind Breaker (WIND BREAKER／ウィンドブレイカー, Kentaro Hagiwara, 2025)

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Throughout the fairly long history of delinquent fighting movies, they were mainly taken at face value as contests of masculinity conducted between adolescent men that may not always have had much to them beyond the battle to reach the top. More recent entries in the genre have, however, begun to reinterrogate its themes along with the kind of masculinity to which these young men subscribe. This is undoubtedly the case in Kentaro Hagiwara’s Wind Breaker (WIND BREAKER／ウィンドブレイカー), adapted from the manga by Satoru Nii, which pits the individualistic desire for domination against that for a healthier and more accepting vision of group unity that exists for the purpose of protecting the community.

This kind of duality is embodied in the hero, Sakura (Koshi Mizukami), who has just arrived in town with the intention of becoming top dog at Furin High School. Sakura has two-tone hair neatly divided down the middle while sporting a golden eye on his white side. His unusual appearance has made him a social outcast rejected by those around him, and so he has decided that violence is one way he can be successful as no one cares what you look like while you’re fighting. Similarly, his dilemma is manifested visually through repeated dream sequences in which he’s walking a narrow tightrope while facing rejection on all sides. 

He will, however, be disappointed to have arrived in this town as the delinquents of Furin High have already rebranded and are no longer interested in fighting for fighting’s sake. Rather they act as a kind of local community militia patrolling the streets to stop rival yellow-jacketed gang Shishitoren from hassling the mostly elderly shopkeepers. Most of the action takes place in a narrow high street-style shopping area which both gives it the feel of a Wild West town and harks back to an older Japan which is in reality already disappearing. Seen from above in the opening crane shot, it appears to be a slightly run-down former slum area, but we can see that it has already been repurposed into a kind of hipster paradise given a friendly feel by the orange and teal colour scheme and modern painted signage. Rather than markets or shops offering basic services like dry cleaning and key cutting, these mainly seem to be artisanal cafes. Nevertheless, most of the proprietors appear to be elderly people whom the young men are dedicated to both protecting and assisting. In return, they have been somewhat adopted by them with the shopkeepers freely giving out food and produce as a thank you rather an as protection. 

This does not sit that well with Sakura who resists making friends and only agrees to join the group in the hope of finally fighting its leader Ume (Shuhei Uesugi), a young guy with grey hair who fulfils the role of the wise old man. He’s set up a garden on the school roof and somehow installed a giant tree up there. His wholesome desire for a kind of pastoralisation or a managed ecological take over the urban space stands in stark contrast to the of Shishitoren whose territory is a mess of discarded paper strewn with makeshift fabric banners that echo post-industrial apocalyptic decline. Similarly, Shishitoren subscribe to a quasi-fascist philosophy which values only strength with gang leader Choji (Koki Yamashita) actively beating up and kicking out guys who lose fights. 

Yet as Ume says, fighting is dialogue and these physical clashes are also ways for young men to work out emotional problems they may not even have identified. Choji may be fighting a kind of ennui in having reached the top and realised there’s no where else to go, while his conflicted subordinate realises his desire to support his friend was misplaced and rather than going along with him the right thing to do would have been to discourage his obsession with physical strength and loathing of “weakness”. Sakura too comes to realise that true weakness lies in the inability to trust and rely on others. Fighting only has merit when it’s in service of something other than oneself. Thus masculinity is defined as something rooted in family, community, and brotherhood rather than in aggression and violence, though the only real way to win is not to fight at all. Anchored by strong production design and well-crafted action sequences, the film has an air of sincerity in its earnest messaging that perhaps cuts across the grain of contemporary debate and offers a more positive view of the future marked by progress and positivity rather than darkness and violence.

Trailer (English subtitles)