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Perennial Nikkatsu Studios hard-case Joe Shishido plays 'Togawa', a recently released con who is convinced by a mob boss to plan and execute an armoured car robbery, targeting 120 million yen in race track proceeds. In a typical narrative trajectory for these types of stories, he assembles his team, plans the heist, does the job, deals with the unforeseen complications, and then is double crossed, leading to a third act of reprisal and vengeance. Togawa is an interesting, ambivalent character: he's initially portrayed in a sympathetic light as the orphaned son of parents murdered by the Chinese at the end of WW2 and loving brother of an invalid sister, yet his role in the heist is to ambush and gun down the two escorting police men in cold blood. In keeping with the film's cold, evocative title ("Cruel Gun Story"), the body count is high as 'Togawa' is forced to deal with treachery within his own team, betrayal by the mob boss who hired him, as well as a corrupt ex-lawyer trying to move up in the criminal ranks. The ending is bleak and grim, but satisfying in a noir way. Well worth watching by fans of crime melodramas.

(1964) Cruel Gun Story/ Kenjû zankoku monogatari (In Japanese with English subtitles) CRIME DRAMA/ ACTION

The Japanese equivalent of "The Killing", "Riffifi" and "The Asphalt Jungle" to name a few ...starring Joe Shishido as Togawa experiencing his early release set up by the syndicate, instructs him to rob the Japanese derby, only to find out later that he and his partner were tricked and double crossed. The fourth of five movies of the Nakkatsu Noir Criterion.

I was like, kind of hoping that this Japanese heist equivalent of both American and UK movies was not going to end in the same manner as the other heist movies, if one were to watch enough of them made during that era may define it as cliche at this point.

A gritty Japanese film noir from 1964. Joe Shishido stars as a recently released thief who gets a job from a Yakuza boss to pull off an armored car heist. Accepting the job & picking out his own gang (even testing them by giving them a beating to see if they would hold up under police questioning), the team is set & the crime is pulled off nearly w/o a hitch but then the inevitable double cross comes down (both by the Yakuza & his own gang) but he manages to blast his way to freedom, gaining the aid of a rival Yakuza gang when they kidnap the Capo's son but then the right hand man of the Capo decides to double cross his boss during the exchange (the son's killed) which finds Shishido w/the upper hand (recovering the loot) until they find his hiding spot right before he sets sail to South America. Will Shushido make it to the bitter end? Knowing the genre in which this film resides should give you the answer as the shade wearing anti-hero is always all business from the film's start to finish w/Shushido (who according to Eddie Muller's Noir Alley intro/outro got cheek implants so that he would be taken seriously as a distinctive actor) meting out his own brand of justice to any & everyone.

This wonderful box-set from Radiance, World Noir Vol.2 with the German, Black Gravel (1961) and the French, Symphony for a Massacre (1963) were fine but this third one from Japan was not as good. Of course, Joe Shishido is great and all the actors fine but the story is just too simple and predictable. There is a lot of shouting and hitting each other for little reason and much double cross although there are some decent shoot-outs. Shishido was starring the same year with Youth of a Beast (1963) and later with Branded to Kill (1967) both fantastic and it is just a shame that this one just not good enough.

"Cruel Gun Story" stars one of the weirder actors of his era, Jô Shishido. I say weird because Shishido actually paid to have surgery to give him bizarre cheeks--making him appear, somewhat, like a human chipmunk! This apparently made him quite popular in Japanese crime films (I didn't realize that Japanese criminals were cursed with this odd facial characteristic!). I've seen him in quite a few films including: "Branded to Kill", "Youth of the Beast", "Detective bureau 2-3" and "Gate of Flesh" and he is the epitome of Japanese cool.

When the story begins, you learn that Shishido's been in prison for killing a man who ran over Sashido's sister. As a result, the sister is wheelchair-bound, so Shishido felt compelled to kill the guy. Now, he's been sprung from prison early--apparently some mob boss wants him lead a team in an armored car robbery. Shishido agrees--as he hopes that the money can pay for some miracle surgery to heal her. Unfortunately, there's more to the plan than Shishido is aware of and perhaps this is NOT a good way to make a fast buck. Can our anti-hero somehow survive this bold caper? I could say more, but it would spoil the film.

This is a very taut and exciting crime film thanks to a great plot, good acting and Shishido's character--a nice mixture of coolness, machismo and, in an odd way, honor. Plus, I sure liked the very dark ending--what a finale. Overall, I'd say this is one of the best examples of Japanese noir I have seen and it's well worth seeing--whether or not you are a fan of the genre.

Film 4/5 in the Nikkatsu Noir series, and like Take Aim at the Police Van before it, Cruel Gun Story has a great title.

This one is less noir-ish and more of a straightforward heist film than any of the films in this boxset that came before, and I was perfectly okay with that. Heist movies are always satisfying when they get the basic components right, and all the stages are executed fairly well here- the planning, the heist itself, and then the inevitable fallout and consequences.

There's some good shootouts, and Jo Shishido makes for a good lead, as he always seems to do. I wish the aftermath of the heist had been a little more engaging, or at least on par with the first two chunks of the film, but it still had a decent conclusion overall.

Easy to recommend if you want something like Stanley Kubrick's The Killing, which is another tight and satisfying black & white heist movie that I should maybe revisit some day.

As a heist film this one is a little by-the-numbers, but there is a certain cool and conflicted angst that Joe "the Ace" Shishido brings to the role, and you can certainly do worse. He's a criminal who lives by a moral code and is looking out for his sister who has a disability, a trope akin to the hooker with a heart of gold. Naturally things don't go completely as planned during the robbery, there are betrayals, and big shoot-out scenes, all leading to a wild ending. Not a bad way to spend 87 minutes.

CRUEL GUN STORY is very reminiscent of Kubrick's THE KILLING: a group of motley criminals plan to rob a horse race track (or in this case, a truck transporting money from one). They believe this will be an easy pay day, the perfect crime. Unfortunately, human folly and bad luck get in the way.

While this idea has been done before, CRUEL GUN STORY is a great take on the classic tropes with its very human characters and chilly style. The action scenes are thrilling and the undercurrent of weary humanity puts this among the best of late-stage classic noir.

Cruel Gun Story, originally known as Kenju Zankoku Monogatari, is a Japanese film noir that mixes elements of a personal drama with gritty action-thriller sequences. This is one of the last movies directed by Nikkatsu Studio employee Furukawa Takumi who would live to get one hundred one years old and stars charismatic lead actor Shishido Jo who has been excelling in such particular genre flicks.

This film tells the story of a young criminal named Togawa Joji who has been spending time in prison for getting his revenge on a reckless truck driver who brutally injured his sister who has since been living in reclusion in a sanitarium as she is confined to a wheelchair. Upon getting out of prison, Togawa Joji is immediately forced by his influential employers who managed to get him out of prison earlier than expected, to organize and execute an ambitious theft with three partners in crime. While one of them is a dear friend of old date, the other two are scheming outcasts who cannot be trusted. When the four criminals are forced to go into hiding after their crime, they turn against one another. To make matters worse, Togawa Joji is also betrayed by his employer. He is now on a quest for survival, motivated by a thirst for revenge and obsessed with taking care of his sister.

Kenju Zankoku Monogatari is an above average film noir that ultimately qualifies as a very good crime drama. The actresses and actors become one with their roles and Shishido Jo excels as rough protagonist with a heart of gold. The mixture of brutal scenes such as prolonged car chases are fluidly intertwined with heartfelt moments such as the protagonist's relation to his physically challenged sister who has no hope for recovery. The script comes around with interesting twists and turns that will keep you guessing until the very end that might get you to the edge of your seat. The desolate settings such as crumbling buildings, abandoned industrial areas and dirty sewer systems have been chosen with great care. This film has been shot with great care thanks to precise light and sound techniques. The fact that this film has been shot in black and white due to a limited budget actually enhances its gloomy atmosphere that fits perfectly with its genre.

On the negative side, the film's script is expertly written but fails to come around with any new ideas that would appeal to cineasts who aren't interested in the film noir genre. It's also obvious that this film has aged quite a lot due to its limited budget and actually looks much older than other genre films created at the same time or even earlier. Another element that deserves to be mentioned is the movie's controversial ending. Personally, I feel that it fits in perfectly but other reviewers might be disappointed by its particularly dark tone. This movie is most certainly only recommended to mature adults and shouldn't be watched by children at all.

At the end of the day, Cruel Gun Story, originally known as Kenju Zankoku Monogatari, is highly recommended to film noir fans, cineasts who enjoy gripping personal dramas, anyone looking for old-fashioned action-thrillers and people interested in Japan's post-war culture of the sixties.

Fairly mundane set up, criminal looking to do one last job, with fairly typical characters, but well done and with a Japanese outlook and form. Bleak and dark with some nice action and final act. Worth seeing for old Chipmunk Shishido who plays it cool as usual.

This is a tightly constructed and well made Japanese gangster film. Lots of people get killed, trying to steal from and betray one another. The main story is the planning and execution of a daring and ingenious heist of an armoured car full of cash. But the emphasis is very much on the characters, and they come across as individuals rather than as just cardboard cutouts. The lead actor is Jo Shishido (1933-2020). I thought his cheeks were rather odd, and I was right. One of IMDb's more learned and scholarly reviewers of this film has pointed out that puffy cheeks were at the time trendy for a Japanese gangster and that Shishido, who often played gangsters, had his cheeks surgically altered to fit that fashion. In this film he often wears dark sunglasses indoors in dark settings, and I wonder how he could see to move about. Shishido made 274 films, it seems. So those cheeks must have worked. OK, so the film is a bit odd, but then it is Japanese, and no one has ever discovered what planet they come from or whether they had to pay customs duty on their samurai swords. (There are no swords in this film, mercifully, but no end of guns.) For people who like gangster films, this is a very superior one.

The Nikkatsu studio has a great material at their hands, something alike Stanley Kubrick's THE KILLING, unfortunately some easy perceiving mismatches the whole thing falls apart, if the producers send it previously to a craftsman writer aiming for a better treatment on the lame screenplay the results should be far greater, just in early shooting process a keen eyes would see primary mistakes on key sequences and pinpointing changes required to avoid a damage on the offering.

Those glaring mismatches starting on detour sequence when the armored car still at sight the phony policeman already changes the fake barrier, allowing to driver realizes what's going on or when two suitcases are open a brand new money bills appears coming from the lowest bets of hippodrome where everybody dealing with small used bills mostly, so where coming from those brand new money anyway? Well someone's skipping their cinema classes.

Worst the alleged perfect heist the gang randomly find a whereabout to hidden the large truck of out of sight of police, what a luck guys, the came up an expected double crossing by the crook boss ends up in a bloodshed, the final outcome is fairly overstated, therefore a missing opportunity of Nikkatsu studio to make a flawless Japanese Noir.

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First watch: 2025 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.25.

A daring, intriguing production design is not enough to distract from the essential dullness of this genre picture. The imitation of American baseball should not necessitate a concomitant imitation of the American gangster yarn. "The Killing" and "White Heat" had this stuff right; it's derivatives here don't have the mythological backbone to make this work. Moreover, the physical violence and the caper itself strain credulity.

Jô Shishido is fresh out of prison and is picked to lead a crew in an armored car robbery. He needs the money for an operation for his sister, so he agrees to take on a tough crew. However, things don't go right, and there is betrayal and a chance for vengeance awaiting him.

Although the heist is well performed, I found the sheer violence, from beginning to end to be almost a parody of the form. Shishido starts by beating up his potential crewmates in order to establish... that this is one of the Nikkatsu crime thrillers, I suppose, and those are about tough guys committing crimes with plenty of bloodshed. That it does, but it offers little to the genre but Shishido in his typecast screen role, doing more of the same.... an excess rather than an advance and foreshadowing the logical end point of the dramatic form.

Should be called "Crude Gun Story" since it's a not very sophisticated or original re-make of Kubrick's "The Killing". And Joe Shishido makes Sterling Hayden look like Daniel Day Lewis. I guess if you admire the work of its director you'll call this thing an "homage". I, however, prefer the term "cheap imitation" like so much of what was made in Japan in the early 60s.