Vintage Pulp

March 25 2024

DIAMONDS AREN’T FOREVER

The deeper into the Underworld you go the hotter it gets until everyone—and everything—is liable to get burned.

The two tateken style posters you see above were made for the Japanese crime drama Ankokugai no bijo, the title of which means “beauty of the underworld,” and which was known in English as Underworld Beauty. The movie is about a bunch of gangsters chasing after some diamonds. Co-star Tôru Abe has them first, but when the yakuza catch up to him, he swallows them and jumps off a roof, ending up in a hospital. He soon dies and the treasure is cut out of his body, but that’s merely the beginning of a struggle to retain their possession. Abe’s sister, played by Mari Shiraki, is the underground beauty of the title, and gets tangled up with the mobsters. They say diamonds are forever, but we’re told early in the film when it seems as if the coveted stones might go into a crematorium with Abe’s body, that they can actually burn. That’s clumsy foreshadowing, but Underworld Beauty still manages to be an interesting and mostly satisfying film. It premiered today in 1958.

Japan, Nikkatsu, Ankokugai no bijo, Underworld Beauty, Michitarô Mizushima, Mari Shiraki, Shinsuke Ashida, Tôru Abe, yakuza, poster art, cinema, movie review

Vintage Pulp

December 15 2022

HARD TARGET

His wife sometimes made him so mad he felt like he could kill her. Then the opportunity came.

We’ve watched a lot of movies this month, and today is the day we begin squeezing them onto the site before the end of the year. The shooter’s POV poster above was made for Aiyoku no wana, aka Trap of Lust, which is a roman porno reinterpretation of Seijun Suzuki’s 1967 gangster classic Koroshi no rakuin, aka Branded to Kill. It’s the story of a veteran hitman who botches an assignment, with the unexpected consequence that he’s ordered to kill his own wife.

It isn’t a punishment thing, exactly, that brings this about. The reason she becomes his target is narratively more complex. But killing one’s spouse is not easy even for a cold-blooded professional terminator, and ultimately he’s pitted against a couple of top yakuza hitmen, one of whom is a freaky deaky assassin who does his work alongside a nearly life-sized marionette that he voices like a schoolgirl. We know it sounds out there, and it is. Look at the screenshots below for an idea what this disturbed character is about.

The marionette gimmick isn’t totally gratuitous. It contributes to a pivotal duel that by itself nudges the movie onto the positive side of the watch/don’t watch ledger. While we’re tempted to get into the weird psychocultural reasons why embodiments of pure human evil in Japanese films are often covered in brown shoe polish, we’ll just leave the obvious unspoken. Ready for something bizarre? Then go for it. Aiyoku no wana premiered in Japan today in 1973.

Japan, Nikkatsu, Aiyoku no wana, Trap of Lust, Koroshi no rakuin, Branded to Kill, Genjiro Arato, Moeko Ezawa, Rie Nakagawa, poster art, cinema, yakuza, movie review

Vintage Pulp

July 14 2022

LUST AND FOUND

You can attain enlightenment through years of mental discipline, rigid study, and incessant ritual. Or you can just get properly laid once.

Above you see a poster for Yakuza kannon: Iro Jingi, known in English as Yakuza Justice: Erotic Code of Honor, and to dive right into this one, the movie starts bizarrely when a fisherman hooks the corpse of a drowned woman. She died pregnant, and defying all scientific laws, the fisherman delivers the child, though a cadaver obviously can’t produce the labor contractions needed to push a baby out. But perhaps there’s something mystical at work.

The infant grows into handsome Jirô Okazaki, who has been indoctrinated into monkdom and lives and works on the grounds of a vast temple complex. Onto those grounds one day comes Nozomi Yasuda, who is the daughter of a yakuza boss, and is promised to another yakuza boss. But she’s broken the engagement, and when her erstwhile fiancée sends men to kidnap her the attempted snatch happens right in front of Okazaki. Boy saves girl, and sparks fly.

Okazaki’s days had been filled by the typical meditation and drudgery of monks, but dealing with the slick yakuza and getting some sweet, sweet Yasuda lovin’ changes him to the point where he soon sees the world through a modern, violent, sexual lens. He says at one point (speaking about himself in third person, which we guess monks do): “Seigen has had a taste of earthly life—starting with the tip of his cock.” The eloquence of the man is stunning.

The tale then takes a circular route that explains how Okazaki’s mother ended up dead in that river in the first place. It’s a stretch, but when it comes to Japanese films from this era that was their stock-in-trade. Okazaki continues down a dark path and eventually risks losing himself. Or finding himself, if you believe this is always who he was under his monk’s robes. Birth or rebirth—in either case, Yakuza kannon: Iro Jingi is a pretty interesting story of transformation. It premiered today in 1973.

Japan, Nikkatsu, Yakuza kannon: Iro Jingi, Yakuza Justice: Erotic Code of Honor, Jirô Okazaki, Nozomi Yasuda, Chizuyu Azami, poster art, cinema, yakuza, movie review

Vintage Pulp

February 28 2022

FIRE ENGINE RED

Bunta Sugawara spits hot lead in Machine Gun Dragon.

Cagney! Bogart! And… Bunta? This poster, if you look at the text in the righthand margin, suggests that Bunta Sugawara is a gangster on that level. We’ll see about that in a minute, but one thing is sure—this is a kick-ass image of him. It was made for his crime flick Yokohama ankokugai mashingan no ryu, known in English as Yokohama Underworld: The Machine-Gun Dragon. Sugawara plays a rogue gunman, thief, and fashion plate who decides to rob the Matsumi yakuza clan of a billion yen worth of drugs. Ill gotten gains are hard to keep in crime movies, so you know already what the story arc is here: the people he robbed come looking for him.

However, there are some quirks. For example, Sugawara has a disturbingly close relationship with his mother. The two take baths together, as mom dispenses parental wisdom like, “The most important thing in the world is money. A guy without money is garbage. He might as well not have a dick,” while peeking at Sugawara’s dick, which thankfully is out-of-frame. It’s under mom’s influence that Sugawara robs the Matsumi group, a heist the pair pull off in the first moments of the film. They plan to hold the goods until the heat cools, but another gang deduces that Sugawara was involved and demands half the drugs for not turning him over. The cops are soon closing in too, since the robbery resulted in a quadruple homicide.

Eventually, Sugawara engineers his own arrest. It’s the only way he can avoid capture by the yakuza, and in jail he can presumably regroup. But Matsumi has men inside. Those men have no idea how ruthless and resourceful Sugawara is, and in the film’s best sequences he shows how survival inside this particular prison is about who’s willing to be the most vicious. He doesn’t spend long in jail, which means that upon release his problems still must be faced. But fire breathing dragons are very hard to kill. As hard as Cagney and Bogart? Well, let’s just say that if Bunta goes out, he’ll go out guns blazing. Yokohama ankokugai mashingan no ryu premiered in Japan today in 1976.

Japan, Yokohama ankokugai mashingan no ryu, Yokohama Underworld: The Machine-Gun Dragon, Bunta Sugawara, Shin'ichi Chiba, Sonny Chiba, Aiko Mimasu, Kyôko Enami, poster art, cinema, yakuza, movie review

Vintage Pulp

February 10 2019

SINGLE BULLET THEORY

The shot heard 'round Japan.

This unusual poster was made to promote a film called Teppôdama no bigaku, known in English by the cool title Aesthetics of a Bullet. The movie came from Art Theatre Guild, or ATG, producers of films in the loose category known as Japanese New Wave, meaning to take a new approach to filmmaking by rejecting traditional ideas and techniques. This one was directed by Sadao Nakajima and stars Tsunehiko Watase as a hot-headed two-bit hustler named Kiyoshi who tries numerous schemes to get ahead, including being a chef, gambling, and breeding rabbits. He fails at all of them, and he’s desperate for a break.

When he’s given a job by a local yakuza cartel known as Tenyu Group, he quickly learns about the power of a gun. With it he can command others, make them fear and respect him, make them literally kneel. With this gun his sense of self worth is first restored, then inflated. He caresses it, brandishes it, polishes it, treats it better than even the women he lusts for, and the gun confirms that he’s superior to others. And once he feels superior he becomes—not to put too fine a point on it—a total asshole. He’s actually an abusive chump even before the gun, but the weapon fully unleashes his destructive, hyper-masculine impulses.

The things he does are too ridiculously stupid to get into. Suffice it to say that even for a regular guy these would lead to trouble, but he’s Tenyu Group’s thug-at-large, which means his erratic behavior and explosive anger offends the other crime bosses. Pretty soon he discovers that he’s torn a dangerous rift in the yakuza network. But what Kiyoshi doesn’t know—which the audience does from the beginning—is that Tenyu Group hired him in the first place precisely because he’s a disruptive fuck-up. Their theory was always that he would spark a gang war. All he has to do is fire that beloved gun once and Tenyu Group will have the excuse it needs.

Aesthetics of a Bullet is obscure, so we knew nothing about it, but we liked it. It’s concise, has a strong point of view, and a good supporting cast that includes Miki Sugimoto and Mitsuru Mori. Its only flaw—perhaps unavoidable—is that the lead character is such a misanthropic troublemaker that we could barely tolerate watching him. But we guess that’s where the whole rejecting traditional filmmaking comes in. Who needs a likeable or even sympathetic lead? Real life is more complicated than that, and Kiyoshi’s fictional life gets plenty complicated too. Even if you can’t root for him, at least he won’t bore you, and neither will the movie. Aesthetics of a Bullet premiered in Japan today in 1973.

Japan, Art Theatre Guild, Teppôdama no bigaku, Aesthetics of a Bullet, Tsunehiko Watase, Miki Sugimoto, Mitsuru Mori, Sadao Nakajima, poster art, cinema, yakuza, movie review

Vintage Pulp

April 29 2017

TOSSED SALLY

She may get pushed around but eventually she always pushes back.

Rashamen Oman: higanbana wa chitta, for which you see he promo here, is known in English as Foreigner’s Mistress Oman: Falling Autumn Flower. The movie starred Sally Mei, aka Sally May, an enigmatic half Anglo half Japanese actress who appeared in a handful of movies and had a short singing career, here playing the character Oman in a sequel to Rashamen Oman: ame no Oranda-zaka (poster here). She’d do one more film in this series called Enzetsu jokyo-den: Oman midarehada, and all of them premiered between March and August of the same year, which shows you how fast Nikkatsu churned these Krispy Kremes out.

The plot of the first movie saw Mei travel from Shanghai to Japan in search of her mother, only to be betrayed by her companion and sold to a brothel, where she becomes a geisha and gambler. Luckily, Mei had picked up some sword skills along the way and put those to good use julienning her captors. The sequel, then, picks up after she’s served a prison sentence only to find that her sister is in the clutches of a group of yakuza lowlifes. Mei is up the challenge once again. Starring as her sister, by the way, is Yuri Yamashina, who we’ve looked at before. Rashamen Oman: higanbana wa chitta premiered in Japan today in 1972.

Japan, Nikkatsu, Rashamen Oman: higanbana wa chitta, Foreigner’s Mistress Oman: Falling Autumn Flower, Sally Mei, Sally May, Yuri Yamashina, pinku, roman porno, yakuza, poster art, cinema

Vintage Pulp

January 18 2014

WOLF PACK

The gangs that couldn’t shoot straight.

Furyô banchô: Inoshika Ochô, aka Wolves of the City, aka Wolves of the City: Ocho the She-Wolf was a significant hole in our Japanese actioner viewing résumé, but we solved that by watching the film a few days ago. In short, you get an amoral motorcycle gang in Nazi regalia pitted against evil Yakuza, with the tide eventually turning when the legendary hellion Ocho the She-Wolf teams up with the gang. The movie looks great. Yukio Noda’s direction—for the most part—is a marvel. He frames shots with six, seven, sometimes even a dozen interacting characters spread across the screen, yet it all seems effortless. Modern directors don’t seem remotely interested in using shots like these anymore, which is a shame, but it may also be a function of today’s screenwriters choosing to limit the number of characters who interact simultaneously. In any case, this is one thing we loved about the movie and we’ve shared some images of this technique below.

But Wolves of the City is a mixed bag. It relies upon numerous violent set pieces, but where the dialogue sequences feel so carefully thought out, the action is pure Keystone Kops. Because Noda continues framing large numbers of actors in single shots, his performers seem more intent upon

hitting their stage marks than making these confrontations look realistic. They reach their required positions in the scenes, but these hardened gangsters handle pistols and machine guns as if they were rubber snakes, dealing a major blow to what should be the visceral thrill of such moments. By packing the screen during the gunfights Noda forces the audience to accept that nobody can successfully shoot anyone from five feet away. It feels very bang-bang-you’re-dead amateurish, complete with wounded gangsters clutching their chests, spinning around, and falling to the floor.

In the end the plot ushers us through various deals, deceptions, and shootouts, and you finally get the inevitable throwdown between the bikers and the Yakuza. This is the most unlikely sequence of all, with bikers motoring around none too swiftly inside a confined warehouse while still miraculously being missed by a hailstorm of screaming lead. But by now we know what we’re going to get and we just have to go with it. At one point Ocho puts out a gangster’s eyes and archly informs him (as if he can hear through the head-splitting pain), “You’re the seventeenth victim of Ocho of Inoshika’s eye attack!” This movie does attack the eyes rather beautifully, and if you look past the Vaudeville antics of the action scenes you may enjoy it. The panel length poster at top is rare, and as far as we know it’s the only one of its kind to be seen online. Furyô banchô: Inoshika Ochô premiered in Japan today in 1969.

Japan, Wolves of the City, Furyô banchô: Inoshika Ochô, Wolves of the City: Ocho the She-Wolf, Yukio Noda, Junko Miyazono, Tatsuo Umemiya, poster art, cinema, yakuza, movie review

Vintage Pulp

April 18 2013

PRISON BREAK

Stuck in Abashiri Prison and time keeps draggin' on.

Above, a panel length poster for Teruo Ishii’s seminal yakuza thriller Abashiri Bangaichi, aka A Man from Abashiri Prison. It starred Ken Takakura in the story of a model prisoner handcuffed to a hardened criminal. When the bad prisoner escapes, the good prisoner is dragged along against his will. The movie was a huge hit for Toei Company, spawning nine sequels, which means we have plenty of opportunities to get into this subject later. Abashiri Bangaichi premiered today in 1965.

Japan, Toei Company, Abashiri Bangaichi, A Man from Abashiri Prison, Teruo Ishii, Ken Takakura, yakuza, poster art, cinema

Vintage Pulp

February 19 2013

THE AMAZING GINZA BLADE

Slices a tomato so thin you can almost see through it! But wait! There’s more! It also works great on Yakuza!

It’s been a while since we had any Meiko Kaji on the site, so today we have four posters—two normal sized and two panel length—for 1971’s Ginchô wataridori, aka Wandering Ginza Butterfly, and 1972’s Ginchô nagaremono mesuneko bakuchi, aka Wandering Ginza: She-Cat Gambler. Haven’t seen them? Well, in our opinion, part two is vastly better than the first installment, but neither is up to the standard of Lady Snowblood. Still though, there are Yakuza and she kills them. What more could you want? You also get Meg Flower in part one, and Sonny Chiba in part two—both good additions. Kaji is still going strong in show business, by the way, having appeared in nine episodes of the Japanese television series Kekkon Shinai in 2012. We have some extremely rare posters of hers we’ll get to shortly.

Japan, Ginchô wataridori, Wandering Ginza Butterfly, Ginchô nagaremono mesuneko bakuchi, Wandering Ginza: She-Cat Gambler, Kekkon Shinai, Meiko Kaji, Meg Flower, Sonny Chiba, yakuza, poster art, cinema, television

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

October 6

1966—LSD Declared Illegal in U.S.

LSD, which was originally synthesized by a Swiss doctor and was later secretly used by the CIA on military personnel, prostitutes, the mentally ill, and members of the general public in a project code named MKULTRA, is designated a controlled substance in the United States.

October 5

1945—Hollywood Black Friday

A six month strike by Hollywood set decorators becomes a riot at the gates of Warner Brothers Studios when strikers and replacement workers clash. The event helps bring about the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, which, among other things, prohibits unions from contributing to political campaigns and requires union leaders to affirm they are not supporters of the Communist Party.

October 4

1957—Sputnik Circles Earth

The Soviet Union launches the satellite Sputnik I, which becomes the first artificial object to orbit the Earth. It orbits for two months and provides valuable information about the density of the upper atmosphere. It also panics the United States into a space race that eventually culminates in the U.S. moon landing.

October 4

1970—Janis Joplin Overdoses

American blues singer Janis Joplin is found dead on the floor of her motel room in Los Angeles. The cause of death is determined to be an overdose of heroin, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol.

October 3

1908—Pravda Founded

The newspaper Pravda is founded by Leon Trotsky, Adolph Joffe, Matvey Skobelev and other Russian exiles living in Vienna. The name means “truth” and the paper serves as an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991.

October 3

1957—Ferlinghetti Wins Obscenity Case

An obscenity trial brought against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, owner of the counterculture City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, reaches its conclusion when Judge Clayton Horn rules that Allen Ginsberg’s poetry collection Howl is not obscene.

October 3

1995—Simpson Acquitted

After a long trial watched by millions of people worldwide, former football star O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. Simpson subsequently loses a civil suit and is ordered to pay millions in damages.