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Jo Shishido fronts this poster for Koroshi no rakuin, aka Branded To Kill, flanked by armed and dangerous sidekicks Mariko Ogawa and Annu Mari. This serves as a second alternate promo to the original, which we showed you years ago. See that here, and the tateken promo here. Koroshi no rakuin premiered in Japan today in 1967.
Above are two posters for Nikutai no mon, aka Gate of Flesh, one of the most famous films to come out of Japan during the post-war period. We talked about the pinku remake of this, which appeared in 1977. The original was directed by Seijun Suzuki and stars Jo Shishido, Satoko Kasai, and Yumiko Nogawa. It closely follows the plot of Tajiro Tamura’s novel, in which a group of tough prostitutes survive in bombed out post-World War II Tokyo thanks to camaraderie and a strict code of conduct, of which the most important rule is never to have sex for free. When a wounded ex-soldier takes shelter with them, some of the women find emotional distance difficult to keep, while one finds maintaining physical distance even harder. The novel is a tragedy, and since the film tracks the fiction closely, don’t expect to walk away from this one with a smile on your face. It premiered in Japan today in 1964.
By now you’ve noticed this year’s Noir City slate concerns heists—all the films so far have involved foolproof plans to make a big score. 1964’s Kenjû zankoku monogatari, aka Cruel Gun Story is about a crew that wants to rob a race track, same as in Kubrick’s The Killing. Japanese superstar Jo Shishido leads his minions on a caper that goes wrong almost immediately and eventually erupts into pyrotechnic violence. If there’s a lesson here it’s don’t get on Shishido’s bad side. Though he’s preternaturally cool (really, we can’t think of another star who could make exchanging close quarters gunfire while smoking a cigarette look believable), restraint in the face of aggression isn’t his strong trait. When he has something serious to say, it’s going to come from the muzzle of a gun. This is another Noir City offering that most sites don’t label as film noir, but the influences are certainly there, and in fact the film is part of The Criterion Collection’s five film Nikkatsu Noir DVD box set. We’ve seen Kenjû zankoku monogatari described as Nikkatsu Studios’ crown jewel. We don’t know about that. We’d call it an imperfect but entertaining effort.
This dramatic poster was made for Nikutai no mon, aka Gate of Flesh, a movie based on a 1947 novel by Japanese author Taijirô Tamura. The book has been filmed five times. The most famous version was made in 1964 with Jo Shishido and Yumiko Nogawa earning acclaim for their lead roles in what was a serious and artistic film, but the above promo is for the 1977 roman porno version starring Reiko Kayama, Izumi Shima, and Junko Miyahsita. Needless to say, the two films diverge rather sharply. However, we need to point out, as we do periodically, that roman porno isn’t porno—it’s softcore. The “roman” in roman porno is short for “romantic,” and though the movies aren’t typically romantic in the normal sense, they aren’t explicit. Such depictions were illegal in Japan back then, and remain so today (though filmmakers use pixilation of sexual organs to skirt the law).
When the novel Nikutai no mon appeared in 1947 a different censorship regime existed called the Civil Censorship Detachment, which was under the authority of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, aka Douglas MacArthur. Under SCAP CCD censorship, explicit accounts of fraternization between Japanese and whites were forbidden, as were detailed accounts of the atomic bombings, or anything that could generate distrust toward the American occupiers. Most Japanese authors obeyed. A few wrote obliquely about the forbidden subjects. And a very few broke the rules entirely to describe war horrors—e.g. flashburned nuclear victims walking naked and blind amongst the ruins, their hairless bodies so swollen their sex could not be determined. Tamura’s novel falls in the middle. It tells the story of a group of Japanese women trying to survive in the rubble of Tokyo via prostitution.
Where the 1964 movie stuck pretty close to Tamura’s fiction, the roman porno focuses more on the sexploitation angle, though it keeps the action set in 1947. A criminal syndicate known as Black Rose provides Japanese girls as prostitutes to the American military, and any who resist the various examinations, training, and indignities are punished with torture and death. When Reiko Kayama arrives on the scene, she eventually inspires the others to follow her as she leads a revolt against her enslavers. You get sex, girlfights, killings, and blood. If you’re looking for standard roman porno fare—with perhaps a bit more visual piazazz than usual thanks to director Shôgorô Nishimura and cinematographer Yoshihiro Yamazaki—you’ve picked the right film. Nikutai no mon premiered in Japan today in 1977.
Above, six Japanese posters for 1950s and 1960s gangster movies. These are, top to bottom, Shichinin no yajû: chi no sengen, aka Return of the Filthy Seven, Sono gosôsha wo nerae: “Jûsangô taihisen” yori, aka Take Aim at the Police Van, Kawaita hana, aka The Pale Flower, Kutabare akutô-domo—Tantei jimusho 23, aka Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards, and finally two versions of Gendai yakuza: yotamono jingi, aka Hoodlum Yakuza.
The above represents a bit of an addendum post. A few years ago we shared a poster for Koroshi no rakuin, aka Branded To Kill. This is a second promo poster we recently found and decided was worth a share. See the first poster along with a rundown of the movie here.
Above are two posters for 1961’s action adventure Rokudenashi kagyo. One of our readers Chris D. tells us: “Using the hiragana pronunciation key (the small letters that can be seen to the left of the title on the poster which has vertically-oriented type, the title says Umi no Shobu Shi, which roughly translates as “Showdown by the Sea.” However, sometimes the English titles of Japanese movies are not direct translations, so the official international English title chosen for this flick was Tiger of the Sea. For the U.S. it was called Sea Fighters. Both posters are nice but the top one is particularly good. The movie, which is about a castaway who joins a gang of pirates, starred Jo Shishido, Nobuo Kaneko, and Hideaki Nitani. And big thanks to Chris for keeping an eye on this for us.
Update: We got an email from a reader named Chris.
I am writing regarding the two posters you have posted here. Both of these posters are, as Chris D. has stated, for the movie Umi no Shobu Shi. They are not for the film Rokudenashi Kagyo at all. Rokudenashi Kagyo is an entirely different film. You might not care, at this point, but I just wanted to let you know. Great site by the way! All the best,
Chris, as we’ve mentioned before, our analytics indicate to us that many visitors are digging through the site for research purposes. At least that’s what it looks like to us. So it’s never too late to get something right. These Japanese posters are especially hard, so thanks for your help and please keep visiting.
Update 2: the intrepid Chris C. has remained on the case and has solved it. He writes:
Thanks for your message. I am happy to have been of some help. Further research has indicated that IMDB is responsible for a lot of the confusion here. They have Rokudenashi kagyo listed incorrectly. There are three entirely different films in question here.
1. Umi no shobu shi (Showdown by the Sea), which you have the posters for on your page. I have never seen this film and do not know much about it, other than its title and possible year of release (1960).
2. Rokudenashi kagyo (Good-for-nothing Business, or Bastard’s Occupation), which is a modern (for the early 60’s), light-hearted action romp featuring Shishido Jo and Nitani Hideaki. A somewhat poor image of the original poster for Rokudenashi kagyo (we’ve added it above at right ed.) is the first attachment here. The film was released in 1961.
3. Umi no tora (Tiger of the Sea), which actually had a release (dubbed in English) here in the USA under the title of The Sea Fighters. The second attached image (below, ed.) shows the poster for this wild, modern day (well, mid-1960’s, that is) pirate film. This film was released in 1964. Just further proof that IMDB cannot be relied on conclusively. Especially when it comes to Japanese cinema!
Thanks, Chris, for settling this. Usually when we get something wrong we just correct the post, but this time we’ll share all this correspondence as a reminder to Pulp intl. visitors that we’re first and foremost interested in getting the correct info out there and sometimes we need a little help. Thanks again for taking the time to do this.
Above is a poster for Seijan Suzuki’s 1967 underground gangster flick Koroshi no rakuin, aka Branded To Kill, with Jo Shishido and Annu Mari. This is about as stylish a movie as you could hope to see, with some stunning directorial flourishes and a cool jazz score. When Tokyo’s No. 3 Killer misses a mark because a butterfly lands in front of his rifle scope, he must pay the price for his failure. Pretty soon he’s facing off against No. 1 Killer, who was supposed to be a myth but turns out to be very real.
Shot in black and white, Koroshi no rakuin is all shadows, flames and frantic shootouts between guys in skinny ties. Suzuki goes on a whirlwind tour of Tokyo and its environs, seeking out every unusual backdrop imaginable for his meticulous and surreal set pieces. We think the movie is worth viewing for the fire stunt alone—a gangster holes up in a WWII bunker, and when it catches fire he flees while fully aflame and manages a fifty yard sprint down a rocky slope, running so fast that the wind of his passage pushes the flames behind him like the crest of some exotic bird.
Like everything else in Koroshi no rakuin, the moment is over all too quickly. That could also be said of its theatrical run—the film was a flop, and its failure resulted in conflicts between Suzuki and his studio Nikkatsu that got him blacklisted for ten years. In a sense, we can understand Nikkatsu’s disappointment—it’s clear Suzuki didn’t take his assignment to direct a gangster film as literally as he might have. But as always, the most important critic of all is time, and Suzuki’s nervous, absurdist, disjointed noir masterpiece has survived. Koroshi no rakuin opened in Tokyo today in 1967.
The Imperial Japanese Navy sends aircraft to attack the U.S. Pacific Fleet and its defending air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. While the U.S. lost battleships and other vessels, its aircraft carriers were not at Pearl Harbor and survived intact, robbing the Japanese of the total destruction of the Pacific Fleet they had hoped to achieve.
In Montreal, Canada, at the École Polytechnique, a gunman shoots twenty-eight young women with a semi-automatic rifle, killing fourteen. The gunman claimed to be fighting feminism, which he believed had ruined his life. After the killings he turns the gun on himself and commits suicide.
Utah becomes the 36th U.S. state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution, thus establishing the required 75% of states needed to overturn the 18th Amendment which had made the sale of alcohol illegal. But the criminal gangs that had gained power during Prohibition are now firmly established, and maintain an influence that continues unabated for decades.
During an overwater navigation training flight from Fort Lauderdale, five U.S. Navy TBM Avenger torpedo-bombers lose radio contact with their base and vanish. The disappearance takes place in what is popularly known as the Bermuda Triangle.
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sails to Europe for the World War I peace talks in Versailles, France, becoming the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office.
In the U.S., a manslaughter trial against actor/director Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle ends with the jury deadlocked as to whether he had killed aspiring actress Virginia Rappe during rape and sodomy. Arbuckle was finally cleared of all wrongdoing after two more trials, but the scandal ruined his career and personal life.
