Obscure Japanese Film #192
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| Masaomi Kondo |
Akiyama (Masaomi Kondo) is a young doctor furious about the death of one of his patients, which he believes was the result of her living right next to a shinkansen (bullet train) track as the intense noise and vibration brought on memories of World War 2 air raids and induced repeated panic attacks which wrecked her health. It’s been around a decade since the advent of the bullet train, and many other people living near to the lines have also suffered greatly, but the rail bosses have done little to address the problems, so Akiyama decides it’s time to take matters into his own hands. He persuades his girlfriend Tomoko (Keiko Takahashi), a nurse, to steal a phial of nitro-glycerine from the hospital and uses it to create a bomb, threatening to destroy a bullet train in ten days’ time if Japanese National Railways (JNR) fail to address the issues immediately. The Police Commissioner (Eitaro Ozawa) calls in investigator Takigawa (Jiro Tamiya), who marshals all the forces at his disposal in a race against time to catch Akiyama and avert a major disaster…
Jiro Tamiya and Eitaro Ozawa
This Tokyo Eiga production has the type of story that can hardly fail to be gripping, but also calls attention to the issue of noise pollution from high-speed trains, which was something of a hot topic at the time. The film was based on a 1974 novel by the leftist writer Ikko Shimizu (1931-2010) which won the Mystery Writers of Japan Award. His work had a strong element of social commentary and often dealt with themes such as corruption in big business, but was only occasionally adapted for the big screen. In this case, the book was inspired by a lawsuit filed against JNR by 575 residents of Nagoya City which would drag on for over a decade (the residents eventually received substantial compensation and the original bullet trains were gradually replaced by quieter models). However, the idea of one of these protestors turning terrorist appears to have been Shimizu’s invention. As the story makes JNR look pretty bad, it’s unsurprising that they refused to co-operate with the film company, so how certain scenes could have been pulled off without their help is anyone’s guess.
Masaomi Kondo and Meiko Kaji
Co-written and directed by Yasuzo Masumura, by this time a freelancer after the collapse of Daiei, it’s efficiently made but one of the least characteristic of his works. The plot has its implausibilities, but also a strong police procedural element and a memorable climax involving a bulldozer which made me wonder whether the filmmakers had seen the previous year’s American TV movie Killdozer.
Star Jiro Tamiya was a Masumura favourite who had previously featured in the latter’s Black Super-Express (1964), which also had a plot revolving around the shinkansen. His co-star, Masaomi Kondo, had been around for a while, having debuted in Shohei Imamura’s The Pornographers (1966), but was mostly known for his TV work at this point, and the part of Akiyama marked his biggest film role to date. The rest of the cast features some well-known faces – including Meiko Kaji as a barmaid who falls for Akiyama and So Yamamura as the president of JNR – but the characters are generally on the thin side and don’t give the actors many opportunities to impress. Not that it matters much – the film rattles along at high speed much like the trains it features, and there’s also a pretty decent score by Hikaru Hayashi, who often worked with Kaneto Shindo as well as Masumura.
So Yamamura
Toei released the similarly-themed Shinkansen daibakuha aka Bullet Train the same year.
Note on the title: The film is sometimes referred to in English as Dynamic Islands, but a more accurate translation of the Japanese title is ‘Artery Archipelago’, which would make sense if one added ‘of the’ in the middle.
Masaomi Kondo and Meiko Kaji
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