Hishakaku and Kiratsune: A Tale of Two Yakuza

(1968)

★ 7 IMDb · 3 votes

Genres: Crime

Year: 1968

Runtime: 109 мин

Country: Japan

Director: 内田吐夢

Cast: 鶴田浩二, 若山富三郎, Сумико Фудзи, Кэн Такакура, 中村竹弥, 大木実, 信欣三, 天津敏, 山本麟一, 村井國夫

Plot

With his penultimate film, Uchida revisited one of his popular prewar titles, 1936’s Theatre of Life, an adaptation of Shiro Ozaki’s eponymous novel. Three-time Seijun Suzuki collaborator Goro Tanada wrote a gangsterized adaptation of Ozaki’s story for Uchida at a time when the yakuza had eclipsed the samurai genre as Toei's main cash crop. Protagonist Hishakaku murders a man in a quarrel over a barmaid and goes to jail. In his temporary absence, his girlfriend Otoyo, a former geisha, falls for Hishakaku’s brother, inciting a dangerous love triangle that, in typical yakuza fashion, ends tragically.