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- 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.
- Rusty Knife. 1958. Rusty Knife was the first smash for director Toshio Masuda, who would go on to become one of Japanese cinema’s major hit makers. In the film, 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. At the beginning of Seijun Suzuki’s taut and twisty whodunit, a prison truck is attacked and a convict inside murdered. The penitentiary guard 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 rough-and-ready Joe Shishido) has no chance to go straight because he is immediately coerced by a wealthy mob boss into organizing a heist on an armored car carrying racetrack receipts.
No doubt there are plenty of noirs out there from the incredibly prolific Nikkatsu studios. Japanese noir didn't really take off until the late 1950s (barring the two influential Kurosawa films: Stray Dog and Drunken Angel in the late 40s), so many of the Nikkatsu noirs I saw in that travelling retrospective were inevitably in color.
- (53)
- Image Entertainment - Criterion
- $65.74
- Foreign
- Synopsis
- Picture 7/10
- Audio 6/10
- Extras 1/10
- Closing
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 “borde...
For their 17th Eclipse box set entitled Nikkatsu Noir, Criterion presents five Nikkatsu crime films, including I Am Waiting, Rusty Knife, Take Aim at the Police Van, Cruel Gun Story, and A Colt is My Passport, all of which have been spread over five single-layer discs. I Am Waiting is presented in the aspect ratio of 1.33:1, Rusty Knife in the aspe...
All five films present Japanese Dolby Digital 1.0 mono tracks. They vary in quality as well, getting better through each film, but as a whole they’re decent enough. They can come off a little edgy and the music can sound a little rough, but dialogue is adequate, and gunshot effects are rather loud, startling at times.
As this is an Eclipse title there are no supplements to be found other than notes written by Asian film critic Chuck Stephens. I Am Waiting actually comes with an insert with about three pages of notes, while the other titles contain the usual one page set of liner notes. The insert acts as a sort of introduction to the set, covering the genre of t...
After the displeasure I experienced with their previous Alexander Korda Eclipse set, I was pleased to find Criterion is back on track again with this set of Nikkatsu crime films. I’m a sucker for gangster films from any part of the world and this set did not disappoint. The films are all visually energetic, taut, and fun (but if I had to choose a f...
Aug 25, 2009 · Included in this boxed set are 5 fantastic Japanese films noir produced by the Nikkatsu studio in the 1950s and 1960s. This was the height of the Japanese film noir era, and few studios produced as many wonderful films of this style during that era. The price is reasonable for 5 expertly translated and subtitled quality films.
- (62)
- Collection
- $40.64
- DVD
Aug 24, 2009 · Noir Complex: Out Of The Past. Yujiro Ishihara, who played Tachibana and also reappears in I Am Waiting in this boxset, was one of Nikkatsu's big youth skewing screen idols. In his early scenes here, he is mellow and delicate, imagine Anthony Perkins, but it isn't long before his boyish face is snarl-carved, teeth gritting, wild eyed, and it is clear he is only out to bust heads with angst ...
Aug 19, 2009 · Eclipse Series 17:Nikkatsu Noir. I Am Waiting: Port of Call. The year: 1957. The city: Yokohama, not far from the piers. The sound of the tide softly lapping against stones in the darkness, cubes of black ice in a tumbler of foam. Night.
Tachibana is a classic noir hero. His past haunts him, and his present situation pushes him to do the right thing even though it's dangerous. Terada takes a new bribe and gets into trouble with the gangsters, forcing Tachibana's hand.
