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Cruel Gun Story
is a 1964 Japanese action film directed by Takumi Furukawa. This film was made available in North America when Janus Films released a special set of Nikkatsu studio's Noir films as part of The Criterion Collection, also including '' I Am Waiting'', ''Rusty Knife'', ''Take Aim at the Police Van'', and ''A Colt Is My Passport''. Cast * Joe Shishido - Togawa * Chieko Matsubara - Rie * Tamio Kawaji - Takizawa * Shōbun Inoue - Okada * Yuji Odaka - Shirai * Minako Kazuki - Keiko * Hiroshi Nihonyanagi - Matsumoto * Hiroshi Kondo - Kondo * Saburo Hiromatsu - Saeki * Junichi Yamanobe - Yanagida Plot A wealthy Yakuza boss has arranged for the early prison release of Togawa, played by Joe Shishido, who has been serving time for having taken revenge on the man whose reckless driving has consigned his sister, Rei, to a wheelchair. Togawa has no chance to go straight as he is immediately coerced by the mob boss into organizing the hijacking of an armored car carrying 127 million yen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Takumi Furukawa
was a Japanese film director. Career Born in Tokyo, Furukawa graduated from the College of Art at Nihon University in 1941 and entered the Nikkatsu studio first in the screenwriting division before becoming an assistant director. After serving in the war, he returned to work at Daiei Film before returning to Nikkatsu when it resumed producing films in 1954. While working as an assistant director, he assisted such directors as Tomotaka Tasaka, Kajiro Yamamoto, Akira Kurosawa, and Heinosuke Gosho. He made his directorial debut in 1955 with ''Jigoku no Yōjinbō'', which starred Rentarō Mikuni and for which he wrote the script. He is most known for directing ''Season of the Sun'' in 1956, which was a box office success and helped launch the career of Yujiro Ishihara. His ''Cruel Gun Story'' (1964) was released on DVD with English subtitles by Eclipse from the Criterion Collection. Furukawa, aka Tai Kao-Mei (), also directed two films in Hong Kong and dramas for television. Furu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joe Shishido
was a Japanese actor most recognizable for his intense, eccentric yakuza film roles and his artificially enlarged cheekbones. He appeared in some 300 films but is best known in the West for his performance in the cult film ''Branded to Kill'' (1967). In Japan, he is also known by the nickname for his popular role in the Western ''Quick Draw Joe'' (1961). Early life Joe Shishido was born in the Kita Ward of Osaka, Japan. He had two older brothers, one younger sister and a younger brother who also became an actor under the name Eiji Go. Shishido attended schools in Tokyo and Miyagi. In 1952, he graduated from high school and enrolled in the theatre course at Nihon University. Two years later, he auditioned for the Nikkatsu Company's New Face contest. He was one of 21 selected from 8,000 applicants. Shishido dropped out of school and began working for Nikkatsu, appearing in small film roles. Nikkatsu In 1954, Joe Shishido signed on as a contract player at Nikkatsu. Studio boss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chieko Matsubara
is a Japanese actress from Nagoya, Spotted at a beauty contest sponsored by the Nikkatsu studio, Matsubara made her debut in 1961 at age 16 in ''Yoru no chōsensha''. Matsubara won popularity and became one of the representative actresses of the Nikkatsu. She appeared in over 100 films at Nikkatsu. Her representative films included ''Tokyo Drifter'' (1966) and ''Outlaw series An outlaw, in its original and legal meaning, is a person declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, all legal protection was withdrawn from the criminal, so that anyone was legally empowered to persecute or kill them ...''. Selected filmography Film Television Honours *Kinuyo Tanaka Award (2016) *Sochi Film Festival Best Actress Award (2016) : ''Yuzu no Ha Yurete'' References External links Official agency profile Chieko Matsubara at Kinenote* * 1945 births Living people Japanese film actresses People from Nagoya {{Japan-film-actor-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Janus Films
Janus Films is an American film distribution company. The distributor is credited with introducing numerous films, now considered masterpieces of world cinema, to American audiences, including the films of Michelangelo Antonioni, Sergei Eisenstein, Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, François Truffaut, Yasujirō Ozu and many other well-regarded directors. Ingmar Bergman's ''The Seventh Seal'' (1957) was the film responsible for the company's initial growth. Janus has a close business relationship with The Criterion Collection regarding the release of its films on DVD and Blu-ray and is still an active theatrical distributor. The company's name and logo come from Janus, the two-faced Roman god of transitions, passages, beginnings, and endings. History Janus Films was founded in 1956 by Bryant Haliday and Cyrus Harvey, Jr., in the historic Brattle Theater, a Harvard Square landmark in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Prior to the conception of Janus, Haliday a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nikkatsu
is a Japanese entertainment company known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio, founded in 1912 during the silent film era. The name ''Nikkatsu'' amalgamates the words Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally "Japan Motion Pictures". Shareholders are Nippon Television Holdings (35%) and SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation (28.4%). History Founding in 1912 Nikkatsu was founded on September 10, 1912, when several production companies and theater chains, Yoshizawa Shōten, Yokota Shōkai, Fukuhōdō and M. Pathe, consolidated under the name Nippon Katsudō Shashin. The company enjoyed its share of success. It employed such notable film directors as Shozo Makino and his son Masahiro Makino. During World War II, the government ordered the ten film companies that had formed by 1941 to consolidate into two. Masaichi Nagata, founder of Daiei Film and a former Nikkatsu employee, counter-proposed that three companies be formed and the suggestion was appr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Film Noir
Film noir (; ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American ''film noir''. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key, black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography. Many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Great Depression. The term ''film noir'', French for 'black film' (literal) or 'dark film' (closer meaning), was first applied to Hollywood films by French critic Nino Frank in 1946, but was unrecognized by most American film industry professionals of that era. Frank is believed to have been inspired by the French literary publishing imprint Série noire, founded in 1945. Cinema historians and critics defined the category ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinephiles and public and academic libraries. Criterion has helped to standardize certain aspects of home-video releases such as film restoration, the letterboxing format for widescreen films and the inclusion of bonus features such as scholarly essays and commentary tracks. Criterion has produced and distributed more than 1,000 special editions of its films in VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc, DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray formats and box sets. These films and their special features are also available via an online streaming service that the company operates. History The company was founded in 1984 by Robert Stein, Aleen Stein and Joe Medjuck, who later were joined by Roger Smith. In 1985, the Steins, William Becker and Jonathan B. Turell f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I Am Waiting (film)
is a 1957 black-and-white Japanese film drama directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara. "I Am Waiting" was part of the Nikkatsu film studio's wave of Japanese noir films, in order to compete with popular American and French films in Japanese box offices. This film was made available in North America when Janus Films released a special set of Nikkatsu Noir films as part of the Criterion Collection. These films include ''Rusty Knife'', ''Take Aim at the Police Van'', ''Cruel Gun Story'' and ''A Colt Is My Passport''. "I Am Waiting" was one of Nikkatsu's earlier successes. Plot On a dark night, former boxer Jōji Shimaki ( Yujiro Ishihara) meets Saeko (Mie Kitahara), a club singer on the verge of suicide. They live and work together at a restaurant where they begin to fall in love, struggling to escape from their dark pasts. Jōji deals with his failure as a boxer, shamed of having been barred from the ring. Saeko hopes to hide from gangsters who have forced her to work at their cabaret. She ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rusty Knife
is a 1958 action Japanese film directed by Toshio Masuda. ''Rusty Knife'' was part of the Nikkatsu film studio's wave of Japanese ''noir'' films, made in order to compete with popular American and French films at the Japanese box office. The film became more widely available outside Japan only when Janus Films released a special set of Nikkatsu ''noir'' films on DVD, as part of the Criterion Collection. The other films in the set are ''A Colt Is My Passport'', ''Take Aim at the Police Van'', ''Cruel Gun Story'', and '' I Am Waiting''. Plot Yukihiko Tachibana is an ex-convict trying to begin a new life after he is released from prison. Unable to forget the rape and consequent suicide of his girlfriend, he seeks revenge against a crime syndicate while resisting the urge to kill again. Meanwhile, the district attorney Karita and his men try to build a case against the same syndicate. Cast * Yujiro Ishihara as Yukihiko Tachibana * Mie Kitahara as Keiko Nishida * Shoji Yasui as Ka ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Take Aim At The Police Van
is a 1960 Japanese film directed by Seijun Suzuki and starring Michitaro Mizushima. Production The Nikkatsu Company conceived ''Take Aim at the Police Van'' as a borderless action film, a studio subgenre with internationalized characters and setting. Contract director Seijun Suzuki had previously worked mainly on pop song films, a youth subgenre in which the films were built around an already popular song, and yakuza films with an occasional film noir bent. It also marked the beginning of his practice of co-writing his films. Leading man Michitaro Mizushima had also starred in Suzuki's ''Underworld Beauty'' two years earlier. He was atypical of borderless action films by virtue of his age, forty-eight at the time, as they typically featured Nikkatsu's younger stars such as Yujiro Ishihara and Akira Kobayashi. Release ''Take Aim at the Police Van'' was released in Japan by the Nikkatsu Company on January 27, 1960. It was subsequently released in a five-film DVD box set, titled ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Colt Is My Passport
is a 1967 Japanese yakuza film directed by Takashi Nomura for the Nikkatsu Corporation. It is based on the novel '' Tobosha'' by Shinji Fujihara. It stars Joe Shishido as a hitman and Jerry Fujio as his partner; reprising his usual roles of contract killer, Shishido's performance in the film launched him beyond doubt as a hard boiled action hero, not only in Japan but in the whole genre, and remains his personal favourite of the most of 100 films he made at Nikkatsu. The film was strongly influenced by French New Wave and crime films directors such as Jean-Pierre Melville, Jacques Becker or Henri Decoin and by Sergio Leone-style westerns. Nomura's use of still shots in the opening sequence has been compared to manga art techniques. This film was made available in North America when Janus Films released a special set of Nikkatsu Noir films as part of the Criterion Collection, also including '' I Am Waiting'', ''Rusty Knife'', ''Take Aim at the Police Van'', and ''Cruel Gun Stor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamio Kawaji
was a Japanese actor. Career Kawachi was a student at Kanto Gakuin University when Yujiro Ishihara, one of his neighbors in Zushi, Kanagawa, invited him to join the Nikkatsu studio. He made his debut in ''A Slope in the Sun'' (1958) playing Ishihara's younger brother. The studio initially sold him as one of the "Bad Trio" along with Akira Kobayashi and Tadao Sawamoto. He appeared in films by Koreyoshi Kurahara and Seijun Suzuki and is probably most known abroad for his starring roles in Kurahara's ''The Warped Ones'' (1960) and '' Black Sun'' (1964). Kawachi eventually left Nikkatsu for the Toei Company, and co-starred in the 9-film ''Mamushi kyōdai'' series with Bunta Sugawara in the 1970s. He also acted on television, with his last acting appearance being a TV mystery in 2017. He was also known for his recurring role as Inspector General Sawaii in ''Ultraman Tiga''. Selected filmography Film *''A Slope in the Sun'' (1958) - Tamio Takagi *''Chi to ai no shuppatsu'' (1958) - ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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