Obscure Japanese Film #137
 |
Keiji Sada
|
 |
Masao Oda
|
This Shochiku
production stars Keiji Sada as Hagisaki, the deputy head of an accounts
department whose boss, Sekino (Masao Oda), commits suicide. Hagisaki receives a
letter from the dead man explaining that he felt it was the only way to take
responsibility for losing 30 million yen of the company’s money as a result of
a scam.
 |
Ko Nishimura
|
 |
Shinji Takano
|
Despite being warned by
the company’s lawyer, Segawa (Ko Nishimura), not to interfere, Hagisaki takes
it upon himself to investigate and joins forces with his friend Tamura, a
journalist (Shinji Takano). Their clues lead them first to the Red Moon bar on
the Ginza, and eventually to a mountain village in Nagano.
 |
Fumio Watanabe and Jun Tatara
|
 |
Yachiyo Otori
|
 |
Jun Usami
|
Among the other people
involved in the mystery are bartender Yamamoto (Fumio Watanabe), a private
detective (Jun Tatara), a moneylender’s secretary named Etsuko (Yachiyo Otori)
and right-wing politician Funasaka (Jun Usami), but it proves to be a crusty
old villager (Bokuzen Hidari) who provides the key to the mystery before events
reach a gruesome climax involving an acid bath…
 |
Bokuzen Hidari
|
Based on a novel of the
same name by popular mystery writer Seicho Matsumoto, this story is typical of
the author’s work, but not one of the best adaptations of it. Masayoshi Ikeda’s
suspenseful music score helps, but the story is allowed to become a little too
complicated for its own good and fails to maintain the interest as a result.
It
also doesn’t help that the hero, Hagisaki, is such a blank slate of a character
– Keiji Sada was a good actor, but he’s given very little to work with here,
which is at least partly his own fault as he was a big enough star to have made
changes if he had cared to. It’s competently but rather indifferently directed
by Hideo Oba, best known for his What Is
Your Name? trilogy (1953-54), which also starred Keiji Sada, but the
proceedings are occasionally enlivened by some of the excellent character
actors who pop up along the way.
 |
Yachiyo Otori
|
Leading lady Yachiyo
Otori had been a stage star for the Takarazuka theatre company; this was her
first film under contract to Shochiku. She makes little impact here, although
it’s not much of a role, to be fair. Her film career never really took off and
she had more success on stage and television. At the time of writing, she’s
still alive at the age of 91.
No comments:
Post a Comment