is a

1967 Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 5 ** Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris, establishing full consular and ...

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

yakuza film is a popular film genre in Japanese cinema which focuses on the lives and dealings of ''yakuza'', Japanese organized crime syndicates. In the silent film era, depictions of ''bakuto'' (precursors to modern yakuza) as sympathetic Robin Hood-li ...

directed by

Takashi Nomura Takashi Nomura (野村孝) (February 18, 1927 – May 5, 2015) was a Japanese film director for studios including Nikkatsu. The Criterion Collection described him as a "prominent, stylistically daring director". In 1955, he joined Nikkatsu Film c ...

for the

Nikkatsu Corporation 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 ...

. It is based on the novel '' Tobosha'' by Shinji Fujihara. It stars

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'' ( ...

as a

hitman Contract killing is a form of murder or assassination in which one party hires another party to kill a targeted person or persons. It involves an illegal agreement which includes some form of payment, monetary or otherwise. Either party may be ...

and

Jerry Fujio ; 26 June 1940 – 14 August 2021) was a Japanese singer, actor and ''tarento''. Born to a British mother and Japanese father in Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municip ...

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 French New Wave (french: La Nouvelle Vague) is a French art film movement that emerged in the late 1950s. The movement was characterized by its rejection of traditional filmmaking conventions in favor of experimentation and a spirit of iconocla ...

and

crime film Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...

s directors such as

Jean-Pierre Melville Jean-Pierre Melville (; born Jean-Pierre Grumbach; 20 October 1917 – 2 August 1973) was a French filmmaker and actor. Among his films are ''Le Silence de la mer'' (1949), ''Bob le flambeur'' (1956), '' Le Doulos'' (1962), ''Le Samouraï'' (196 ...

Jacques Becker Jacques Becker (; 15 September 1906 – 21 February 1960) was a French film director and screenwriter. His films, made during the 1940s and 1950s, encompassed a wide variety of genres, and they were admired by some of the filmmakers who led th ...

Henri Decoin Henri Decoin (18 March 1890 – 4 July 1969) was a French film director and screenwriter, who directed more than 50 films between 1933 and 1964. He was also a swimmer who won the national title in 1911 and held the national record in the 500 ...

and by

Sergio Leone Sergio Leone (; 3 January 1929 – 30 April 1989) was an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter credited as the pioneer of the Spaghetti Western genre and widely regarded as one of the most influential directors in the history of cin ...

-style

westerns The Western is a genre set in the American frontier and commonly associated with folk tales of the Western United States, particularly the Southwestern United States, as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada. It is commonly referred ...

. 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 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, cinep ...

, also including '' I Am Waiting'', ''

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 fil ...

'', ''

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 set ...

'', and ''

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 Wai ...

''.

Plot

Contract killer Contract killing is a form of murder or assassination in which one party hires another party to kill a targeted person or persons. It involves an illegal agreement which includes some form of payment, monetary or otherwise. Either party may b ...

Shuji Kamimura (

) and his partner Shun Shiozaki (

) are hired by yakuza boss Senzaki to eliminate a former partner, Boss Shimazu, who has embezzled from an international co-op between both men. Kamimura successfully assassinates Boss Shimazu at his home while meeting with Senzaki. Kamimura and Shun attempt to leave the country by plane, but are waylaid and kidnapped by Shimazu's men. The duo escapes by stopping their car with specially-designed second brake behind the driver's seat that Shun had installed earlier, which kills Shimazu's men. Senzaki's lieutenant Nozaki orders them to hide out at a truck stop, the Hotel Nagisakan, to wait for further instructions. Later that night, more gunmen under Shimazu's lieutenant, following information from fellow yakuza boss Tsugawa arrive to kill them, but do not find the duo as they have escaped by bribing one of the patrons to take them to another motel. The next day, the chief of Shimazu's men attempts to kill the duo by intercepting them and ordering their ferry that was supposed to be their getaway vehicle to depart early; this fails when Kamimura and Shun show up in the truck they rode in from the previous night and run over the hitman, but the ferry has already left. Returning to the Nagisakan, Kamimura drugs Shun with a sleeping pill while Mina, the motel's waitress, directs him to a freighter captain willing to smuggle the three out of the country. However, Tsugawa manages to broker a peace deal between Senzaki and Shimazu's son, who has succeeded his father as boss. The two settle their differences and decide to have Kamimura eliminated. Shun is later kidnapped at the Nagisakan, and when Mina arrives to pick him up and her belongings, is told by Senzaki by phone to have Kamimura meet with one of his henchmen. Later, Mina returns to Kamimura and tries to leave without Shun, but one of Senzaki's men arrives. Kamimura then negotiates to have Shun released in exchange for himself in three hours' time. The exchange goes as planned, and the ship leaves without Kamimura, who arranges to meet with Senzaki and Shimazu at a landfill the next morning for his execution. Kamimura then spends the rest of the day planning on how to fight off the gunmen, spying on them testing various weapons on a special car with bulletproof windows, which Senzaki, Shimazu, and Tsugawa plan to use to safely watch Kamimura's execution. Kamimura then builds a bomb from several dynamite sticks with stopwatch as a timer; he also digs a ditch in the landfill where he plans to hide it. Shortly after finishing the ditch, he is beset by hitmen and fends them off. The car carrying Senzaki, Shimazu, and Tsugawa then moves to run him over with a gunman in the front trying to shoot Kamimura. Kamimura is hit several times but when the car is almost upon him, he dives into the ditch and plants the bomb under the car, which explodes, killing all its occupants. An injured Kamimura then briefly surveys the carnage before limping away as the film ends.

Cast

as Shuji Kamimura *

as Shun Shiozaki * Chitose Kobayashi as Mina * Shoki Fukae as Funaki * Hideaki Esumi as Senzaki * Jun Hongo as Kaneko * Akio Miyabe as Miyoshi * Toyoko Takechi as Otatsu * Zenji Yamada as barge captain * Kanjuro Arashi as Shimazu *

Ryōtarō Sugi (born 14 August 1944, Kobe) is a Japanese singer and actor. He is the father of actor Jundai Yamada. He appeared in ''Sukima Kaze'', which sold over a million copies. His acting credits include 18 films. On television, he specialized in ''jid ...

as Shimazu's successor *

Kojiro Kusanagi Kojirō, Kojiro, Koujirou or Kohjiroh is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: * (born 1977), Japanese footballer *, Japanese educationist *, Japanese scholar of Islam *Sasaki Kojirō (Ganryu Kojiro, c. 1585–1612) ...

as hitman * Takamaru Sasaki as Otawara * Asao Uchida as Tsugawa * Zeko Nakamura as apartment receptionist

References

External links

* * *
A Colt Is My Passport
' at the

Japanese Movie Database The , more commonly known as simply JMDb, is an online database of information about Japanese movies, actors, and production crew personnel. It is similar to the Internet Movie Database but lists only those films initially released in Japan. Y. ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Colt Is My Passport 1967 films Japanese black-and-white films 1960s crime thriller films 1960s Japanese-language films Japanese neo-noir films Nikkatsu films Yakuza films 1960s Japanese films