Nikkatsu Crime Retro: VELVET HUSTLER

Rated NR; 97min; Director:Toshio Masuda (1967)

Location: Alamo South Lamar

This show is a part of the Fantastic Fest Signature Series, Click to See More

NO BORDERS, NO LIMITS
1960s NIKKATSU ACTION CINEMA Retrospective

The label said it all: Nikkatsu akushon.

Nikkatsu was a studio that had been around since the silent days and akushon was "action," written in the katakana alphabet for foreign words. During their peak, from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, Nikkatsu action films evoked a cinematic world neither foreign nor Japanese. It was a mix of the two, where Japanese tough guys had the swagger, moves, and even the long legs of Hollywood movie heroes. It was a place where the Tokyo streets, Yokohama docks, and Hokkaido hills took on an exciting, exotic aura, as though they were stand-ins for Manhattan, Marseilles, or the American West.

The aim of this retrospective series, first presented at the 2005 Udine Far East Film Festival, is not to challenge the critical consensus, but rather to broaden the discussion by presenting a representative non-Suzuki selection from all periods of Nikkatsu Action. And by doing so, we hope to provide an opportunity for Western audiences to discover some surprising new classics of Japanese genre cinema, and hope that these dramatic, stylish, and entertaining films might some day stand alongside those already enshrined in the critical canon and eventually be made available on home video for a new generation of enthusiastic fans.

With NO BORDERS, NO LIMITS: NIKKATSU ACTION CINEMA author Mark Schilling live in person to introduce each film.

Among actor Tetsuya Watari and director Toshio Masuda's favorite Nikkatsu films (and a remake of the director’s 1958 film RED QUAY), VELVET HUSTLER—also known as LIKE A SHOOTING STAR—stars Watari as Goro, a Tokyo hitman who likes his women like he likes his cars: fast and dangerous. After rubbing out a rival gang boss, he leaps into a conveniently parked red convertible and hotfoots it to the other side of Japan. After a year of lying low, he has wound up the kingpin of the Kobe underground, hanging out in smoky lounge bars by the downtown port area, keeping the US marines on leave from Vietnam in check, while avoiding both Uzu (Tatsuya Fuji), the suspicious police detective who has trailed him all the way down from Tokyo, and the mysterious hitman (Jo Shishido) sent to kill him. But Goro is bored of life with his current moll Yukari and pines to leave vulgar Kobe to return to the sophisticated big city. This desire gains greater impetus when he gets embroiled with Keiko (Ruriko Asaoka), the strikingly beautiful daughter of a jeweler who has recently been embezzled by his employee and future son-in-law. Amused by his rugged charm and over-zealous attempts at bedding her, Keiko soon finds herself drawn into a more dangerous world than the one she is accustomed to.

Takeo Kimura's bright and baroque art direction defined Nikkatsu's product for the decade, but it was the stars that kept the audiences coming, so without imposing an overbearingly visual style on the story, Masuda mainly lets his actors do their job, which may account for his status as one of the most popular and profitable of Nikkatsu's directors at the time. Among all the background shenanigans of fistfights and colorful cabaret numbers, the relationship between Watari's toe-tapping, finger-snapping rogue and Asaoka's pristine rich girl takes centre stage.

Kid Policy: 18 and up; Children 6 and up will be allowed only with a parent or guardian. No children under the age of 6 will be allowed.

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