Ore wa matteru ze

This came in a boxset of Japanese crime-thrillers that I plan to work through over the next week or so, and as this was the earliest release of the five, I decided to start here.

It's very simple and tells a story about a young man and a young woman who both have connections to various shady characters that they both wish to escape from. Its unapologetically direct and for its time, it probably had a little more impact than it does now.

But it was still far from a bad watch, and it can be appreciated and enjoyed as a well-acted and well-directed film that serves as a decent crime movie for the time it was made. It's also nice to see something unpretentious and straightforward every once in a while, because you often can't make a movie nowadays unless it's got a bit more going on to complicate it.

What a great Japanese from my box of World Noir No.1 from the splendid Radiance blu-ray company. Right from the start it is wonderful and we see a bar, cafe with neon and on the waterfront and a steam train carrying goods in front of us. Yujiro Ishihara one of the stars that I have never seen before is great and we see Mie Kitahara the lovely girl I have once seen her in Crazed Fruit (1956 ). Together we see them both wearing those noir macs. The dialogue is fine and just the style and hard as we like it, the cinematography is also just as we like it as the tropes and the cliche but some new and different. He used to be a boxer and can fight and she used to sing, 'I'm a canary that forgot to sing' but she does remember. And there are the thugs that make us smile but they can be tough and towards the end the dialogue changes and the fight ends in the jazz club. I know it was a bit silly now and again but I loved it.

A bar owner on the waterfront takes action to prevent a young woman from killing herself. This leads to a nice relationship, but both characters are carrying around deep secrets. The young man was a promising boxer but one night a man provoked him into a fight and he killed him, losing any chance of realizing his dream. This has led to depression and hope of changing his life in some way. His brother has supposedly gone to Brazil and is getting things ready for them to farm some land. The odd thing is that there has been no word from the him. The young woman is a lounge singer, and she is hooked up with some bad guys who want her back. Neither of them can seem to get rid of their respective pasts. Soon, the two stories become intertwined. This isn't bad but it is slow moving and meandering. Also, there is some unfinished business at the end.

I Am Waiting (1957)

A Japanese kind of noir flavored crime drama that uses tropes and cliches to their max. And it works. There is the woeful beautiful woman and the troubled handsome man, and they meet in ways that make their relationship complicated. Some thugs get in the way, the past has its grim details resurface, and a couple of side characters give the main pair color and life.

It's kind of great in a B-movie way. The filming (camera and lights) by Kurataro Takamura is terrific, and helps hold it up even if the writing is sometimes a bit obvious. The acting is solid, maybe even very good, but the characters are made to play types that don't allow for as much development as you might like.

In all these ways the film is a lot like the average noir. But it doesn't hold a candle to a great American noir. The editing is sometimes awkward, the story a hair too simple (despite all the unnecessary flashbacks), the good and bad guys a bit too simple in their motivations. I think you can love this movie for exactly these things, but know it ahead of time.

Takamura is terrific, it has to be repeated. The long fight scene near the end, and the final long take before the credits, are both first rate stuff. This is director Koreyoshi Kurahara's first film, and if a novice feeling sometimes shows, the movie also reveals a bold talent and reckless love of cinema, which is really all that matters.

This Japanese noir from director Koreyoshi Kurahara is gritty and cool, taking us to smoky pool halls, sleazy bars, and cabarets filled with young people dancing to western music. Yujiro Ishihara makes quite a leading man; he plays a tough guy with a past he's trying to escape from and a dream of moving to Brazil that's mysteriously disappearing. He oozes confidence as he stands up to gangsters and tries to protect a cabaret singer (Mie Kitahara) who's run away from them. The two make quite a pair and I was surprised to learn from Alicia Malone at TCM that aside from marrying in real life, they made 24 films together. The plot to this one is a little contrived in some ways, such as the number of guys that have been killed in barroom brawls and just how easily gangsters will hand over a gun, but it works nonetheless. Very satisfying.