Hishakaku and Kiratsune: A Tale of Two Yakuza (1968)

  • NR
  • 10/25/1968 (JP)
  • Crime
  • 1h 49m

Overview

With his penultimate film, Uchida revisited one of his popular prewar titles, 1936’s Theatre of Life, an adaptation of Shiro Ozaki’s eponymous novel. Three-time Seijun Suzuki collaborator Goro Tanada wrote a gangsterized adaptation of Ozaki’s story for Uchida at a time when the yakuza had eclipsed the samurai genre as Toei's main cash crop. Protagonist Hishakaku murders a man in a quarrel over a barmaid and goes to jail. In his temporary absence, his girlfriend Otoyo, a former geisha, falls for Hishakaku’s brother, inciting a dangerous love triangle that, in typical yakuza fashion, ends tragically.

Tomu Uchida

Director

Gorō Tanada

Screenplay

Cast

Koji Tsuruta's headshot

Koji Tsuruta

Tomisaburō Wakayama's headshot

Tomisaburō Wakayama

Sumiko Fuji's headshot

Sumiko Fuji

Ken Takakura's headshot

Ken Takakura

Takeya Nakamura's headshot

Takeya Nakamura

Minoru Ōki's headshot

Minoru Ōki

Kinzō Shin's headshot

Kinzō Shin

Bin Amatsu's headshot

Bin Amatsu

Recommendations