The Last Judgment / 最後の審判 / Saigo no shinpan (1965)

Obscure Japanese Film #250

Tatsuya Nakadai

Masao Mishima

Jiro (Tatsuya Nakadai), the manager of a pool hall owned by Asai (Masao Mishima), has been having an affair with Masako (Chikage Awashima) since her wealthy engineer husband went to oversee a construction project in Vietnam two years earlier. The husband in question, Riichiro (Fujio Suga), also happens to be Jiro’s cousin. When he returns from abroad, it becomes very difficult for the lovers to continue meeting, especially as Riichiro is not only a jealous and suspicious type, but has a short fuse to boot.

Fujio Suga

Jitsuko Yoshimura

Meanwhile, Asai wants to sell the pool hall and Jiro wants to buy it but lacks the funds. He also has little time to find them as the local yakuza want to buy the place, but then he thinks of a clever solution to his problems. This will involve both seducing a waitress, Miyoko (Onibaba’s Jitsuko Yoshimura), and getting Riichiro to use his explosive temper against himself. But will Jiro be able to stay one step ahead of dogged police detective Kikuchi? (This latter is played by Junzaburo Ban, who played a similar character in the same year’s A Fugitive from the Past.)

Junzaburo Ban

This Toho production was based on the 1949 novel Heaven Ran Last by William P. McGivern (1918-82), who also wrote the novels on which Fritz Lang’s The Big Heat (1953) and Robert Wise’s Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) were based. Heaven Ran Last, though, was never filmed by Hollywood and, like Kurosawa basing High and Low (1963) on Ed McBain’s novel King’s Ransom, it’s an indication of how much American pulp was being translated into Japanese in the post-war years that it came to the attention of director Hiromichi Horikawa. In this case, apart from transferring the story from America to Japan, screenwriters Zenzo Matsuyama and Ichiro Ikeda have stuck pretty closely to the book – too closely, perhaps, according to some Japanese reviewers who have commented that the characters don’t behave like Japanese people. In any case, I found it to be one of the better plots I’ve seen in this type of film as the twists don’t become too far-fetched, as is so often the case.

Chikage Awashima

Several of the same talents from Horikawa’s excellent 1963 noir Shiro to kuro (‘White and Black’, aka Pressure of Guilt) returned for this one, including Japan’s top film composer Toru Takemitsu as well as cast members Chikage Awashima, Masao Mishima, Eijiro Tono and, of course, star Tatsuya Nakadai. The Last Judgment makes an excellent vehicle for Nakadai, who looks very cool driving around in an MG Roadster in his shades and fur-lined jacket and is obviously having a field day being very bad indeed. However, Jiro is saved from becoming a one-dimensional villain not only by Nakadai’s charismatic performance but the fact that his love for Masako, at least, does seem to be genuine.

One of the great things about Takemitsu as a composer was that he knew when to shut up, an all-too-rare talent which is well in evidence here, while Horikawa makes excellent use of industrial noises to heighten the tension in a number of scenes. Another plus is the dark, shadowy cinematography of Tokuzo Kuroda. All in all, The Last Judgment is a very satisfying noir that has been kept in the dark for far too long.

Thanks to A.K.

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