Source: Film Movement press release
Special Thanks to Michael Krause
In the 1960s Toei Studio was Yakuza Central and filmmaker Tai Kato was the chief exponent and innovator of this popular genre. American audiences equate the yakuza with the contemporary gangster, but the classic yakuza setting is more akin to the western, with swordplay more than gunplay, silk not seersucker, and honor not anarchy in the teeming gambling underworld. This allowed Kato to indulge his passion for historical drama, as well as for startling realism and audacious camerawork.
In the low-budget quickies that were in demand during the second Golden Age of Japanese cinema, constraint was the mother of invention and personal style for Kato. Not only did he favor "the natural beauty of the face" over makeup, and gesture over genre codes, he created what some call a cinema of excess: one-shot sequences of extraordinary lyricism and power, flat wide-angle framing, and his most famous trait, the low-angle shot which breaks up the scene and sometimes the body into its components.
Closer to Sergio Leone than to Ozu, Film Movement Classics pays homage to this legendary creator of the Yakuza genre with two incendiary masterpieces, both presented in high definition for the very first time.
Photo courtesy of Film Movement. © Toei
BY A MAN’S FACE SHALL YOU KNOW HIM (男の顔は履歴書, Otoko no Kao wa Rirekisho, 1966)
WWII veteran Dr. Amamiya (played by real life former yakuza Noboru Ando) runs a clinic in a downtrodden Japanese neighborhood. When an accident victim brought to him for treatment turns out to be his ethically Korean war buddy he recalls the criminal strife that practically ripped their town apart and changed their lives forever some years earlier right after the war.
Flashbacks reveal the brash and contentious Korean gang that tried to take over the local market and turn it into a red light district. While fueled by innate prejudice from the native Japanese residents, the hoodlums’ ruthless methods lead to unspeakably treacherous acts. As both sides’ anger escalates to the brink, Dr. Amamiya takes matters into his own hands to try and control this untenable conflict.
Director Tai Kato’s groundbreaking feature takes on controversial sociopolitical issues with his distinct cinematic aesthetic in a seamless blend of melodrama and action that is exemplary of his “superb craftsmanship and personal style” (Los Angeles Times).
Directed by: Tai Kato
Written by: Tai Kato, Seiji Hoshikawa (Story)
Cast: Noburu Ando, Ichiro Nakatani, Sanae Nakahara, Juzo Itami, Akemi Mari, Bunta Sugawara
Genre: Action/Crime/Drama
RT: 89 minutes
Language: Japanese with English Subtitles
Photo courtesy of Film Movement. © Toei.
Photo courtesy of Film Movement. © Toei
I, THE EXECUTIONER (みな殺しの霊歌, Mina Koroshi no Reika, 1968)
As the police investigate a sudden rash of brutal murders whose victims are all women the unscrupulous killer’s murky motivations remain hauntingly elusive. A labyrinthine character study slowly unfolds implying that the targets of these unspeakable acts may be culpable in their own shocking demise.
Although director Tai Kato worked within the studio system mostly on genre films, his distinctly bold and somber style proved him a maverick auteur, with I, THE EXECUTIONER one of his most incendiary masterpieces. Kato matches the film’s bleak narrative themes to its innovative aesthetics, “with blown out negatives, extreme close-ups, and deep focus mixed with his characteristic low angle composition to add to the sense of noirish dread which paints the modern city as an inescapable hellscape” (Haley Scanlon, Windows on Worlds).
Directed by: Tai Kato
Written by: Haruhiko Mimura, Tai Kate, Yoji Yamada, Tadashi Hiromi (Story)
Cast: Makoto Sato, Chieko Basho, Sanae Nakahara, Kin Sugai, Yoshiko Sawa, Oh Ranfan, Yuki Kawamura
Genre: Action/Crime/Drama
RT: 90 minutes
Language: Japanese with English Subtitles
Photo courtesy of Film Movement. © Toei.
About Film Movement
Founded in 2002, Film Movement is a North American distributor of award-winning independent and foreign films based in New York City. It has released more than 250 feature films and shorts culled from prestigious film festivals worldwide. Film Movement’s theatrical releases include American independent films, documentaries, and foreign art house titles. Its catalog includes titles by directors such as Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Lee Isaac Chung, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Maren Ade, Jessica Hausner, Andrei Konchalovsky, Andrzej Wajda, Diane Kurys, Ciro Guerra and Melanie Laurent.
In 2015, Film Movement launched its reissue label Film Movement Classics, featuring new restorations released theatrically as well as on Blu-ray and DVD, including films by such noted directors as Ang Lee, Eric Rohmer, Luchino Visconti, Stanley Kwan, Peter Greenaway, Bille August, Marleen Gorris, Takeshi Kitano, Arturo Ripstein, King Hu, Sergio Corbucci and Ettore Scola. For more information, please visit www.filmmovement.com. Visit www.filmmovementplus.com for more information about Film Movement Plus, Film Movement’s critically lauded streaming subscription service.