Movielogr
Hishakaku and Kiratsune: A Tale of Two Yakuza (1968)
Directed by Tomu Uchida
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.
Length 109 minutes
Actors
Koji Tsuruta | Tomisaburo Wakayama | Sumiko Fuji | Ken Takakura | Takeya Nakamura | Minoru Oki | Kinzô Shin | Bin Amatsu | Rinichi Yamamoto | Kunio Murai | Shingo Yamashiro | Tatsuo Endô | Hiroshi Nawa | Seiichirô Kameishi | Nobuo Yana | Keiichi Kitagawa | Hiroshi Date | Seiya Satô | Kôji Sekiyama | Kosaku Okano | Nenji Kobayashi | Hiroki Matsukata | Sachiko Hidari | Ryutaro Tatsumi