Assalto al blindato

This is one violent (not in gore as it is brute force intensity), gritty film-noir (part of the "Nikkatsu Noir" set from Eclipse/Criterion) that has a helluva hook - a prison van carrying a couple of peeps is driving at night and two criminals knock a truck in its path to stop the van and then shoot to kill. In the aftermath, one of the guards, Tamon (Mizushima, strapping and no BS male star for Japan if I ever saw one, a bit like a Japanese Mitchum or Glenn Ford), takes it on himself to investigate who was behind it, and it leads him into an 'Agency' that pimps out young women among other nefarious crimes (and what does Tsunaka Ando, played by Shiraki, have to do with it all, or does she even know?)

What makes Seizuki's direction so palpable and involving is how he manages to find some stylistic flourishes while keeping this tight 79 minute story moving; there's this one superbly edited bit where Tamon is walking down a street and Seizuki cuts from him and his grim-determined profile and these four young ladies singing along to a pop song on a jukebox. You think he's recognized the young woman he's been after, he followed her and lost her in a previous scene (those darn graveyards will get ya), but it's not till just a slight beat after he goes by her that he does a double take and recognizes her (and her him) and as he lunges for her she gives a look and the other girls pounce on him. It's extremely clever direction placing us in suspense we aren't even sure will come about, and then it ends on a tussle that is more funny than thrilling (and that's good sometimes!)

Take Aim at the Police Van (one of my favorite titles of all time for the record) doesn't have the most original supporting characters, mostly low life thugs and pissants who may only best Tamon because they're a step ahead of him, and even Shiraki is mostly there to get tense when questioned and then fold pretty quickly thereafter. But the mystery is drawn out without any extra fat on the spine, when characters (mostly Tamon but eventually some others in his orbit) are in danger and are either trapped or fending for their lives it feels like anything can happen, and Seizuki understands widescreen can be used formidably for creating spaces and tension and also for an impactful, once or twice nearly iconic close up (like the sunglasses when we get to see them on the man).

Maybe it is "minor" when compared to Branded to Kill, but that's a tall bar to clear and this is perfectly entertaining B moviemaking all on its own - with an ironic twist ending, but one that means to end more on a surprising emotional beat than a simple "gotcha.

A 1960 police actioner from writer/director Seijin Suzuki (Branded to Kill/Tokyo Drifter) about a disgraced prison guard, Michitaro Mizushima, who loses some of his charges during a shootout during a nighttime transfer. Taking the law into his own hands but also at some point in the story cops are brought in, Mizushima tracks down the players behind the act siding up to the moll of one of the crooks in the hopes of getting back some dignity he suffered from the escape. As per Noir Alley's host Eddie Muller, the film was a revelation to Japanese audiences, especially the younger sect, which embraced the film embarrassing the honchos at the film studio but now 64 years after the fact the film is fine but ultimately safe when a lot of the gunfights which may've lit a fire under the viewing public butts now feel like so much uncontrolled chaos but the throughline of the plot is solid enough though.

Take Aim at the Police Van is action-packed, fast-moving Japanese Noir. Perhaps though, it's a little too fast moving. And unfortunately employs some rather erratic editing.

The story itself has all the makings of a good noir-ish detective murder mystery. Daijirô Tamon (Michitarô Mizushima) is a prison guard who has convicts murdered during a prison transfer. Tamon decides to hunt down those responsible. He quickly stumbles upon an "agency" that supplies young women as "showgirls" and "masseuses". There is no need to read between the lines or even get metaphorical as the fact they are being used as call-girls is blatantly evident. However, Tamon begins to have feelings for the agency's madam, Yûko (Misako Watanabe).

Directed by Seijun Suzuki, Take Aim at the Police Van builds up a good mystery and adds in a number of chases and shooting sequences. Yet the speed of the story and the choppiness of the editing truly shows that this was simply another movie quickly being fed through the Nikkatsu Studios machine. As swiftly Tamon decides to solve the case, the source of all the woe is discovered (also, such identity is not a shock), and the credits roll.

Take Aim at the Police Van is faster than service at a ramen house. But also quite tasty.

An exceptionally well-shot if bitterly average and utterly bewildering mystery, Take Aim at the Police Van marks the very early days for Seijun Suzuki, far less abstract than what I've heard about his more well-known works. He's shooting to a formula but delivering where it matters, be it the woman killed by an arrow to the boob or the faceless gunman who lovingly strokes his rifle's stock before sticking his bubblegum atop its scope. It's a film I wish was slightly more cohesive (and less jazzy) than it is but Police Van benefits from the endless swagger of its lead and fun filmmaking flourishes to stop it from being a frustrating or bad time. A testament to how artists pumping out quickie exploitation movies can often work in truths about their times that prestige filmmakers can't.

Suzuki would go on to do wonders with abstraction and suggestive atmosphere in his later films but this is mostly a compact potboiler that doesn't have any time to spare. In fact there's so much plot here we need to get inside the protagonist's head to hear him try and clear some of it out. Voice-over narration tells us that "Fuychita had a sister, she's my next lead" and we're immediately transported to a tavern where that sister may be spotted. The movie jumps like that from place to place and character to character, gathering very little as it does but a growing number of names and intertwining relationships which are only as meaningful as the next person or clue they lead us to, and then at some point a sharpshooter is shooting at the protagonist and an underground prostitution ring is revealed. This is the kind of movie where people are presumed dead only to reappear later, where the protagonist goes back to his place to find a key character waiting for him in his living room with no explanations given or asked, and where the bad guys stage an elaborate death for the protagonist and his girl to escape when two bullets would have sufficed. It's not film noir by the American standard of the term and it's not even film noir compared to some of the stuff Teruo Ishii was doing at the time in Shintoho studios. It's a comic-book murder mystery with onedimensional characters and convoluted plot (one to make up for the other), a couple of cool scenes, and a swinging jazzy score. Like a dimestore viper novel, it keeps you turning the page but you know you're reading something mostly cheap and disposable by the end of it.