D:
Kosaku Yamashita. W: Kiyohide Ohara, Ikuo Sekimoto, Koji Takada. Ph: Toshio
Masuda. M: Masao Yagi. St: Sonny Chiba (Wataru Kangi), Haruko Wanibuchi (Yoko
Kuze), Eitaro Ozawa (Kozen Tadokoro), Goro Tarumi (Professor), Willy Dosey
(Vietnam)
A
sardonic spin on the prison break sub-genre, Yamashita’s film entices viewers
with the promise of a tried and tested formula but hoodwinks them with a novel
idea. The director’s jail breakers are a team of mercenary escape experts who,
for the right price, spring convicts from one of Japan’s most high-security
penitentiaries. While not quite realizing its full potential of Toei thrills,
tension, double crosses and crude violence will grip lovers of Japanese
gangster movies and aficionados of prison pictures in general.
Cunning
prisoner Wataru Kangi beats the gang’s client to escape from prison by
helicopter only to find himself indebted to them outside the institution’s
perimeter wall. Attempts to escape from them, and thus avoid payment, fail, and
they leave him for dead. Kangi tracks them down, however, and offers his
expertise to the boss, Tadokoro. Deception, egoism and the seductive approach
of the boss’s wife, Yoko, set Kangi increasingly at odds with the gang. Matters
come to a head when the gang rescue Yayoi Okugagi (Mihoko Nakagawa) to apply
pressure on her estranged, lifer father, Matsuo (Tokue Hanazawa), to disclose
the whereabouts of stolen diamonds worth millions of yen.
While
the spirited energy that begins with Kangi’s escape soon lapses into an amoral
but pedestrian crime caper, the opening sequence is a standout. Against Masao
Yagi’s funky guitar-led score, Chiba soars through the air clutching the
helicopter’s rope ladder while changing from prison regulation into an army
uniform disguise. It’s a grandiose stunt, apparently executed by the actor.
Subsequent plans to liberate the gang’s clients are not quite as audacious,
however; broad comedy and black humour seem preferable. When rescuing Yayoi
from the women’s penitentiary two of the gang enter in drag and wrestle the jail’s
butch female warden; much humourless breast grabbing occurs. More comical are
the scenes where they free the tragically institutionalised Matsuo. When two of
the gang drill from the sewers into the prison pigpen, a distressed-looking
porker falls through the floor on top of the bungling duo.
As
Kangi, Chiba is less boorish or explosively violent than he is in other Toei productions
of the era – see Okinawa Yakuza War. Instead he is nonchalant, sometimes introspective and, when dealing with
Yoko, especially when she confesses that she wants to escape the ruthless
Tadokoro, he seems smitten. Fight scenes are rare and don’t quite equal the
feverish pitch of his Streetfighter
films’ blistering martial arts, but Chiba does get the chance to flaunt his
devastating physicality. Perhaps the best demonstration of his pugilistic
skills comes when liberating Matsuo; Chiba fights like a destructive dervish,
laying waste to prison guards with hands and feet.
A
great crime picture often depends on well realised villains, but here Yamashita
has neglected to define the individual members of Tadokoro’s gang. They may be proficient
or ruthless but seem homogenised, with little, except in the case of black gang
member, Vietnam, to differentiate them. Tadokoro, however, is more interesting,
suffused with intrigue while disguised as a priest or obscured, noir style, by low-hanging
naked light bulbs. As the film progresses his moral code becomes more
objectionable, while we believe Kangi has become more righteous. The sultry
Yoko betrays an increasing vulnerability despite her involvement. Her disdain
for her husband is evident while the younger, more virile Kangi becomes more of
an attractive proposition.
A
more poignant tone is sounded by the director’s attention to the emotional gulf
between Matsuo and his daughter. A once callous criminal, he’s now a frail elderly
man who would rather be returned to prison, his physical deterioration
compounded by the emotional pain of Yayoi rejecting him for being abandoned as
a child. The final scenes are tainted with noir fatalism. Locating the place
where Matsuo buried his wife and the diamonds, they discover that the industry
of modern Japan has encroached on both. Intricate plots, double crosses and
bloodshed behind them, only Kangi finds the absurdity of their situation
amusing; his laughter resonates through the tragedy of the final scene, echoing
the delirium that closes The Treasure of
the Sierra Madre.
Clark Hodgkiss
No comments:
Post a Comment