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.
