Jûsangô taihi-sen ori: Sono gôshô o nerae

strong influence from MALTESE FALCON and, for some stretches, really thrilling. as contrived as its setup is, the gas tanker sequence is as good as setpieces go.

Há 60 anos estreava no Japão. Suzuki aqui está começando os anos 60, a década que o aprimorou, mas ainda está num viés mais noir ocidental esteticamente, só mais tarde ele tomaria o gênero para si e se tornaria um verdadeiro autor em termos de mise-en-scène. DVDRip no MakingOff.

Hazily plotted, an inundation of names, places, and exposition from a large cast of non-characters. This hollow imitation of American gangsterism might be more enjoyable if it were as wild and free-spirited as Suzuki's better works. At least the gasoline tanker set piece is pretty cool, the one sequence where this film reaches the improbable and ridiculous heights its director would become known for.

This movie is a lot like a pet dog doing new tricks in an empty room. The ability and desire is there, but the effort falls on deaf ears. Police Van is beautiful and intense, as all Seijun Suzuki films are, but somehow even less concerned with the characters onscreen. (When a movie is more beautifully shallow than Tokyo Drifter, there's an issue.)

A compact but twisty noir. Pretty hard to follow at times (our hero wastes no time jumping into the rabbit hole) but some cool setpieces and Suzuki of course has a good eye. Would have liked some more eccentricity from him but this is a fine way to pass 80 minutes.

Demonstrates that Suzuki was able to deliver entertaining genre films before his more artistic phase which culminated in Branded to Kill. This film moves at a brisk pace, contains some very stylistic scenes and plenty of cool details that should endure a second watch. Plot is confusing and doesn't really hold up but you could say the same about e.g. The Big Sleep. Mizushima is cool and Watanabe makes a good femme fatale. Pleasant suprise that courages to dig deeper into Suzuki's filmograph

A Japanese mystery that tries very hard to be ahead of the viewer, but ends up only becoming confusing and trite. Not a film where much care has been put into development of the characters, and at the end I couldn't give a flying fox about what went on. I'll give points for one rather nasty but comical death scene.

The film builds up to a big reveal, which makes no sense whatsoever, then abruptly ends. Still, the film is charming in its own way, and contains some nice nighttime cinematography.

Complicated story plus jumbled direction made this thing hard to follow. It starts off a bit too pat/canned (and certainly if the suspended guard had been pissed off by his fate, that would've added to the tension a bit more..."Hey it's cool, I can use a vacation" lol). I think I understood the resolution...I guess. Seriously, they've got to come up with better English titles for these things...

Contains one of the most ridiculous assassination attempts in movie history, the kind that could never happen in reality but prolongs the suspense and gives the viewers some nail-biting to flesh out the yawns the rest of this induces. No dice, Suzuki. I knew he had to start more traditional but this is as close to forgettable as it gets.

Starts off beautifully, but the bulk of the film is just an average noir mystery/thriller. The plot is confusing, including at least one instance of the hero suddenly realizing something that he already knew long beforehand, but usually it comes together to make sense. Except the ending, the reveal of who the elusive criminal mastermind "Akiba" is. Maybe I missed something, but I couldn't see any reason for it. Still, the movie is pretty fun, though I'd hoped for a little more style from Suzuki.