Koi no katamichi kippu

(1960) One Way Ticket To Love/ Koi no katamichi kippu (In Japanese with English subtitles) DRAMA

Written and directed by Masahiro Shinoda which takes place during the recession with struggling sax player, Kenji Shirai (Kazuya Kosaka) finally finding a gig to showcase his talents employed by an underground talent agency Eiko Yoshinaga (Yachiyo Ôtori). During this, Kenji meets a sobbing woman Mitsuko Maki (Noriko Maki) who looked like she was about to jump off on front of a subway over an already married man, but was convinced to stay with him for the night until he finds her some employment. It was during then we are then introduced to what is supposed to be the Japanese equivalent of an Elvis impersonator, Susumu Ueno (Masaaki Hirao) one of the agency's popular clients who begins to falls for Mitsuko as she agrees to be employed as hostess/ dancer of some sort in which she may being nude may be one of the requirements. Complicating matters is when the already married man wants to be a part of Mitsuko's life again when at the same is beginning to fall for the sax player, Kenji.

There's nothing other than the soundtrack that really shines in this film. It's about three men, two of them musicians, in love with the same woman. Nothing innovative as far as plot and story go.

The main leads play kind of wimpy characters. There was potential there for some hot-mess drama if the author had made them much stronger instead of portraying them as codependents who can be manipulated into doing just about anything. It made it difficult to find the film engaging.

I did like the camera work. The editing is actually quite good. But the ending left me with a big fat, "What?" It brought my initial rating of a 6 down to a 4.

Not bad I guess? Looks like it was Shinoda's first feature, and through exploring his filmography, I've him to be a director who consistently puts out decent to good movies. None that I dislike, but also none that I can quite say I love.

This too falls under decent, though maybe on the lower end. It's less experimental or new-wavey than his other 60s films, with simple/fairly clear characters and a simple plot that's sort of there if you care, but isn't hugely important if you more just want to watch this for the characters and the overall vibes.

And there are vibes to be had. Plenty of music, and Shinoda's movies had pretty good visuals right off the bat, it seems.

Not bad, not great. As part of his early works, it helps give context to what came after (and still so many more to see from this always interesting director, who along with Yoji Yamada remains one of the last living Japanese directors of this era of Japanese cinema).

A One Way Ticket To Love is Shinoda's first movie as a director. A movie about rock and jazz musicians, it was designed to appeal to a young audience. Apparently it failed, because it bombed at the box office and it was years before Shinoda would be allowed to make the kind of movies he wanted to. The story revolves around a saxophone player, a girl he meets who may have been trying to commit suicide and a singer who is being billed as the Elvis Presley of Japan. All three of them become manipulated by members of the older generation. Can they escape their situation? Or will they, as one character puts it, be sacrificed at the altar of money? It's an interesting story at the Japanese entertainment industry of the early 60's. Unfortunately none of the characters are that interesting. Particularly the saxophone player and his sort of girlfriend are so passive that they seem practically inert. It's too bad because it it seemed like it could been a really good movie.

Noriko Maki breaks up with her lover on discovering he is married. She stands in the street, crying, until saxophonist Kaazuya Kosaka urges her to come along with her. He is on his way to audition for an agent, and gets the gig in a house band at a night club. Miss Maki is also offered a job, as a nude dancer. Meanwhile, the club is about to star teenage heart-throb sensation, Masaaki Hirao. A love triangle develops and things get really messy when her former lover stalks back into her life.

A Hollywood version would offer the audience beautiful people in beautiful settings with plenty of laughs along the way. Writer-director Masahiro Shinoda does no such thing. The world he sets this in is an ugly one of back alleys filled with trash and garishly lit streets and cluttered theaters filled with idiotic bobbysoxers, or whatever the Japanese equivalent is. No one fights fair for love, or is witty; Miss Maki weeps and yearns for Kosaka, who is too upset with her apparent willingness to exhibit her body that he sulks; Hirao threatens the club's manager with a walkout unless Miss Maki sleeps with him; and her former lover thinks he owns her and all her possessions. Love is not a beautiful thing, but an obsession as ugly as the world it exists in.