Killer’s Mission (1969)

Original title: Shokin kasegi

The Dutch have sent a warship towards Shogunate Japan to incite a little civil war with a hold full of modern weapons. After first getting thrown out of the Shogun’s sphere, they start poking at a clan best suited for their plans. Not that everyone there’s completely into waltzing their country into an uprising and a civil war meant to soften its up for colonialist forces, but that’s what assassins are for.

The shogun’s usual spies are only of limited use in this situation, so the shogunate sends in spy-for-hire Shikoro Ichibei (Tomisaburo Wakayama) to somehow resolve the situation. Ichibei is a physician, a ladies’ men, a great shot, a master swordsman, a total badass and the owner of a very big penis (as certified by the film’s comic relief ronin), but even he will have certain troubles with this mission.

Of course, there are various other characters of varying trustworthiness and loyalties involved, like the just as badass female Iga ninja Kagero (Yumiko Nogawa), said comic relief ronin, and so on.

By 1969, Toei’s producers weren’t too keen on making jidai geki anymore, not even of the more marketable chambara style, but provided with the proper selling points, they could still be convinced of the viability of such projects – Tomisaburo Wakayama’s particular love for the genre must certainly have helped, in combination with his popularity.

In the case of Killer’s Mission – the first part of the so-called Bounty Hunter Trilogy, which doesn’t feature its hero doing any bounty hunting at all – that selling point was to cross chambara-style sword fighting action with elements of the Italian western as well as spy shenanigans following the James Bond mode. If you think like an exploitation movie producer, that sort of thing makes total sense; if you watch Shigehiro Ozawa’s Killer’s Mission it does doubly so.

Ozawa was already a veteran filmmaker at this point, but one very willing to go with the stylistic tricks of the time and coming up with zoom and slo-motion variants of his own to add to them. This would soon turn him into one of Toei’s best hands at modern, pop, exploitation cinema independent of genre, and the merry way Killer’s Mission goes from comedy to action to high drama to treason and honour really shows why. There are, of course, given genre, country and time, moments of lovely insanity here, but the more straightforward action of sword and gun, Wakayama’s beloved jumps and so on are just as great.

While the action is getting increasingly crazy and a Morricone trumpet blows through the score, the spy plot works rather well, too, with many a betrayal but also acts of honour you’d never see James Bond and co get up to. In fact, despite its closeness to several particularly cynical genres, this isn’t a very cynical movie at all. Rather it still believes in the possibility of honour even in dishonourable situations. Consequently, Ichibei may bluster and bluff like a hardened cynic – which Wakayama does of course excel at – but he also shows moments of compassion and genuine kindness the actor sells equally well.

Other attractions in this highly attractive movie are Kagero, who can match Ichibei at basically everything and does so with vigour;  and a scene where Ichibei for reasons best known to himself pretends to be a blind masseur. The latter is of course a broad parody of everyone’s favourite sword-swinging blind masseur Zatoichi, who just happened to be played by Wakayama’s younger brother Shintaro Katsu. And of course there are buckets – fountains - of artificial blood, but then, it’s a chambara, and a pretty damn fun one at that, so that nearly goes without saying.

Big Time Gambling Boss (1968)

Original title: Bakuchiuchi: Sôchô Tobaku

Tokyo 1934. The boss of the city’s clan specialized in the gambling business suffers from a stroke while he’s refusing a plan to help unite the yakuza groups into some kind of national front that will bring drugs and prostitution to “the continent” (read “China”).

The succession to the now bed-ridden and mute man’s position is fraught. The best candidate would be the deeply honourable Nakai (Koji Tsuruta), but he’s refusing the role because he came to Tokyo as a refugee from an Osaka clan following trouble with the law there. Apparently taking on the leading role in his adopted clan would be against the Code of the yakuza. Anyway, going by Nakai’s interpretation of things, the designated successor to the position of boss should be Matsuda (Tomisaburo Wakayama), Nakai’s sworn brother.

As a matter of Code and honour, Nakai may even be right about that. Yet right now, Matsuda is imprisoned for his role in an attack on a rival gang that left that gang not much of a problem anymore, but also saw some of Matsuda’s own young men dead. In general, while nearly as traditionally honourable as Nakai, Matsuda is a bit of an emotional powder keg, leading from the front with quite a bit of violence. So he is somebody the clan as a whole doesn’t really want in its highest leadership position.

Prodded by shifty advisor Senba (Nobuo Kaneko with the most astonishing bit of Hitler facial hair), the clan decides to make the boss’s son-in-law, the somewhat lower-ranking and sweaty Ishido (Hiroshi Nawa) the successor, clearly not the strong choice.

Ishido’s ascension ceremony is to take place during a big gambling do for the highest-ranking yakuza in the country.

At this point, Matsuda has been released from prison and is less than happy with the situation. To his sense of personal betrayal comes the fact that not the obviously ultra-competent Nakai is to be the group’s boss, but the weak Ishido. And Matsuda is not the kind of man who can play the diplomatic game, even if it means burning all bridges.

Soon, the plot becomes a complicated machine of obligations, honour, friendship, and betrayal, full of relationships that are much more complicated than they at first appear to be, and violence that is less than cathartic.

When it is spoken about at all in the West, Kosaku Yamashita’s Big Time Gambling Boss – actually the fourth film of a series, though one that usually has not continuity of plot or characters between films – has the reputation of being one of the greatest yakuza films of the ninkyo eiga style. I can’t disagree with this assessment at all – this is pretty much a perfect film, one that stretches the possibilities of the ninkyo style to its absolute limits. That its writer Kazuo Kasahara would go on to script Kinji Fukasaku’s Battles Without Honour and Humanity series seems just the logical consequence of where this one goes.

Certainly, Gambling Boss shares the later films’ tendency to turn an in theory very simple plot about yakuza intrigue into a web of duties, obligations and interpretations of a code of honour where one’s human feelings only further complicate things. Nearly every single character here has to come to grips with their own conflicts between the supposed honour of their societal rules and their actual humanity – Nakai’s and Matsuda’s internal and personal conflicts are the film’s main thrust, but the younger yakuza that take on the role of Nakai’s replacement sons, and the two men’s wives all go through the same struggles.

Nakai’s wife Tsuyako (Hiroko Sakuramachi), to take an example, at first seems to only fulfil the genre role of the dutiful wife, but one second act conflict suddenly reveals her inner life and the struggles she goes through while keeping up appearances, providing the film not only with a sudden jolt of “wait, that’s not how ninkyo eiga work!” but also emphasising one of the film’s thematic undercurrents: the utter destructiveness of a way of life that knows no compromise and lets problems grow and fester until they are only resolved in the most violent and destructive ways. Every character in the movie goes through this, or something comparable, and all of them end up destroyed or dead – and the film clearly isn’t applauding this as the only honourable way to exist but treats it as the tragedy it is.

There is indeed a great deal of compassion for its characters in the film, not the sentimental kind yakuza movies (and their fans, me not excluded) generally prefer, but one that feels more humane, sadder and more subtle.

In large part, this effect of greater emotional nuance is enabled by Yamashita’s restrained and intensely focussed direction. This is a film without any distractions in staging, tight framing that is meant to keep the viewer as close to the characters as possible, and not a second of material on screen that isn’t important to the characters or the plot. This means none of the actors can afford to overact or fall back on the simpler tricks in their toolkits – every moment of drama is earned through their complicated portrayals of complicated feelings and relationships. Even Wakayama, not an actor who appeared to like to be subtle (and whom I usually love for it), follows suit, and gives one of the most nuanced and human performances I’ve ever seen from him. Consequently, the film develops an uncommon emotional pull, a feeling of witnessing a genuine tragedy evolve, instead of a series of ritualized scenes that end in an explosion of violence.

Even here, at the climax, the movie refuses the sure-fire way to please the audience of its genre. Instead of showing is the mandatory showdown between Nakai and a large group of enemies, the film cuts away from it. It makes sense too, for the violence that’s actually important for Nakai came before and will come after that fight, and that violence is brutal, and short, and looks the exact opposite of fun.

In short: ESPy (1974)

The Cold War world is balancing on the edge of destruction: Trouble is brewing in the small Eastern European country of Baltonia (lying right next to Latveria and not all that far from Qraq, I surmise). But don't fear, the UN is on the case! A peace conference is to begin shortly, its protection lying in the hands of a very special secret organization: ESPy, a collection of exceedingly stupid and incompetent people mostly from Japan. Mother Nature gave them psychic powers to make up for their lack of other abilities, though, so not all hope is lost.

Unfortunately, the cleverly named Brotherhood of Evil Mutants anti-ESPy under the leadership of Tomisaburo Wakayama himself is planning to eradicate humanity by causing World War III. It's so easy: They just have to murder the Prime Minister of Baltonia, which will inevitably throw the world into turmoil, even though both superpowers know that this is their plan! Wakayama-sensei, you're a genius!

Will the main agents of ESPy, Tamura (Hiroshi Fujioka, Kamen Raider himself), Miki (Masao Kusakari, bad actor, great dresser) and Maria (Yuki Kaoru, has breasts, gets kidnapped and hypnotized into a "sexy" dance with a Big Evil Black Man) and their psychic talents powered by LOVE (in Miki's and Maria's case for each other, in Tamura's the love between him and his hyper-intelligent dog Caesar) save the day?

Poor Jun Fukuda! Nobody loves his films (including me), but ESPy is nearly enough of a silly fun time to change one's mind. If not for far too many scenes of people moping and some giggleworthy melodrama, this would be a very recommended Japanese look at the Eurospy genre, with less women but more telekinetic duels.

Even in this state, one can have some fun with things like a tongue ripping by our racist main hero, the hypnotic earrings of doom, Tomisaburo Wakayama's fascinating technique of overacting without moving, Caesar the dog intellectual, explodo-guns, old masters coming back from the mountains, more death traps than in Shakal's lair and much more - all taking place in exotic locales like Swiss, Turkey and Paris-without-Eiffel-Tower, filmed exclusively on the cloudiest days of the year.

What's not to like?

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