Koruto wa ore no pasupôto

(1967) A Colt is My Passport/ Koruto wa ore no pasupooto (In Japanese with English subtitles) ACTION THRILLER

Consist of remnants of "Yojimbo" and "For A Few Dollars More" Japanese gangland style. Adapted from a crime novel by Shinji Fujiwara, starring Jo Shishido as hired hit man Shûji ordered along with his partner, Shun (Jerry Fujio) to take out a former rival of another syndicate. And upon leaving, they are then get themselves double crossed for the purpose of money to capture and then execute the hit man responsible. Who are then stranded in a seedy hotel until further orders. It is their he builds a rapport with a young female worker of the Nagisakan hotel, Mina (Chitose Kobayashi). The last of 5 of the Nakkatsu Noir Criterion box set.

Imagine, if you will, that instead of making westerns, Sergio Leone had decided to make crime thrillers on the model of RIFIFI, but set in Japan. That's something like what you get here. Jô Shishido is a hit man hired to kill a rival crime boss muscling in on other territory. While waiting for his flight out of town, the dead man's son shows up and offers to make a deal for the assassin's head. Jules Dassin might want us to think there is honor among thieves, but Leone never would, and neither does the director of this movie, Takashi Nomura.

It had a deliberately 1950s 'B' movie look, with its b&w photography and "stolen shot" camerawork, but the constantly moving camerawork and stunt gags are clear signs that this is serious film making.... and talented, too; Nomura is not that well known, but this is a good flick. Harumi Ibe's soundtrack starts out sounding like Morricone, but then switches to jazz arrangements for the crime story.

A Japanese New Wave Spaghetti Western-styled noir thriller and one of the rawest titles ever, A Colt is My Passport is a down-and-dirty but gorgeously photographed yakuza film, brimming with formal experimentation. The winning combination of Takashi Nomura's supreme emulation of the American noir formula with the sheer badassery of Jo Shishido trumps the often slow middle portion of the film. The climax alone, especially the final 15 minutes and masterful ending, more than makes up for the cluelessness of the majority of the storyline; ending not too dissimilarly to that of Sergio Leone's masterpieces. Rounding off the film with a musical score that sounds almost identical to that of Morricone's works, A Colt is My Passport is a lean, mean and efficiently entertaining piece of trans-cultural fusion where one's passport gives you a fast ride straight to hell.

While watching a large variety and volume of titles allows one to better appreciate all that cinema has to offer, sometimes the other side of the coin is that a title can do everything right and still struggle to make a major impression out of everything one has seen. I feel that this counts among the latter.

The stunts and effects result contribute to sharp bursts of violence, and Nomura Takashi's direction is impeccably tight. Mine Shigeyoshi's cinematography is smartly dynamic, and crisp and vivid, making the viewing experience a real pleasure. The cast give strong performances. Ibe Harumi's score is a minor joy as it blends flavors of the spaghetti western with those more typical of contemporary crime flicks. With rich, terrific writing, even each scene in turn is a blast, so complete, vibrant, and fulfilling from one to the next that it's almost like we're getting a long series of short films. Characterizations are just as splendid, with the result that supporting character Mina, brought to life with welcome vitality by Kobayashi Chitose, threatens to upstage the hard-boiled, cool-headed yakuza protagonists. The story at large is firmly compelling and engrossing as hit men Kamimura and Shiozaki flee from their enemies following a successful assassination. Some bits and bobs throughout are rather brilliant, really, and the viewing experience is a great time all around.

From front to back 'A Colt is my passport' is an excellent picture. The thing is, even as I'm in the midst of watching, I'm fully aware that I'm unlikely to remember anything about it even two hours from now. Even the costume design, hair and makeup, production design and art direction, and filming locations are lovely, yes, and the climax and ending are exciting. I genuinely have no criticism to level. It's through no fault of anyone involved that the sum total doesn't specifically resonate with me; no doubt other viewers will find it altogether revelatory, and I'm glad for them. This is absolutely worth checking out if one has the opportunity, and anyway, there's nothing particularly wrong with a feature that comes and goes just as easily in our purview. It just means that the lasting value is up in the air. The long and short of it is that if you're in the mood for a fine crime movie regardless of whether or not it sticks in your memory, 'A Colt is my passport' earns a solid recommendation, and let's just leave it at that.

Like most of the other reviewers, I was struck by the similarities between this Japanese crime thriller, clearly modeled after 1950's American film noir, and Sergio Leone's iconic 'spaghetti' westerns. Briefly, hitman Shuji Kamimura (Joe Shishido) and his assistant Shun Shiozaki (Jerry Fujio) are hired to assassinate a yakusa boss only to be betrayed by their employer. On the run, they hole up in a seedy hotel, where Kamimura attracts the eye of former mob moll Mina (Chitose Kobayashi) who agrees to use her connections in the local merchant fleet to help them escape. The mob closes in and Kamimura has to make some tough decisions. Joe Shishido is very good in an atypical way as the impassive contract killer, as is the rest of the cast (especially Kobayashi), and the story moves along at a brisk pace to a satisfyingly bloody conclusion. The black and white cinematography is striking and, while the look is pure noir, the score is an unusual (but effective) mix of discordant jazz (typical of period crime thrillers) and music that is clearly an imitation of (or homage to) Ennio Marricione's iconic spaghetti-western themes. The climactic shoot-out, despite being fought between dapper Japanese gangsters, could have come from a '60's anti-hero western, with a stark landfill site substituting for the desert and choreographed gunplay featuring a variety of weapons and a number of ways to die. This was my introduction to the Japanese crime film (having run out of kaiju and tokusatsu films) and I was equally entertained and impressed and look forward to watching other films in the canon (many of which, I have noticed, have equally evocative titles).