Although Kinji Fukasaku (1930-2003) had been making films since the early sixties, until the release of Battle Royale (2000) and Battle Royale 2 (2003) he was probably best known for directing the Japanese sections of Tora Tora Tora (1970). His tastes were eclectic and in the west he was mostly known for the low budget science fiction films Message from Space and The Green Slime. Odd really, because in his native Japan he was a well-known director of Yakuza movies such as the Yakuza Papers series of films, movies which influenced a generation of gritty film makers.

As one of their last releases Tartan have collected three of his earlier yakuza works. Kinji often set these in the world of post war Japan to highlight that much of the power lay in the hands of an older generation who resented the up and coming new order, this held true for both the worlds of crime and politics.

Blackmail is My Life (Kyokatsu Koso Waga Jinsei, 1968) being one of his earlier films is certainly not his best. It does show his nascent talent for producing entertainingly stylish movies. Shun (Hiroki Matsukata) is at the bottom of the food chain, working in a bar serving tables and cleaning out toilets, until he accidentally overhears a conversation which seems to suggest that the bar is palming off fake booze to their clientele. Not one to miss an opportunity and with nothing left to loose, he gathers together a small group of dispossessed friends and embarks on a career as a blackmailer. However as the poverty and fear which initially held them together starts to fade, with their move into the big time, the group loyalties are tested to the limit.

Neither as brutal or as politically astute as his later films, Blackmail remains an entertaining piece of work.

Black Rose Mansion (Kuro Bara no Yakata, 1969) and moving on with his eclectic tastes Kinji presents a story about a wealthy club owner who hires the singer Black Rose, so called because she always holds a black rose in the belief that when she meets her true love, the rose will turn red. Adapted from a play by Yukio Mishima, Kinji further plays upon the sexual tension by having his heroine played by a female impersonator, Akihiro Maruyama, who had added his vocal talents to Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle. It’s a silly, trashy film, but fun none-the-less, as Black Rose sings the club plays host to an increasingly absurd collection of men from her past. Like any good melodrama it all ends badly.

If You Were Young: Rage (Kimi ga Wakamono Nara, 1970) is by far the best of the trio on offer, possibly because it was made outside the studio system. Once more Kinji turns to the aspirations of youth for his inspiration. Five friends, realising that their chances of individual success are limited now that the post war reconstruction has been completed, band together to buy a truck which they christen Independence No. 1. However, the cost of the truck is equivalent to five years wages, but the friends realise that if they pool their resources they can get it in one. Life, though, does not work out so easily and as the year runs its course one of the friends is killed, another falls into a life of crime, trying to pay for the truck and the third get his girlfriend pregnant and so changes his focus from the truck to caring for his new family.

At the end of the year only two of the friends are left to enjoy the truck. Things still do not pan out as planned when the construction site they work for goes on strike and their criminal friend turns up, having skipped jail.

Free will vs destiny is the main theme here as the group do what they can to help themselves, whilst all the time the whole thing is fated to end in tragedy.

With the demise of Tartan as a company it is a shame that more of his back catalogue is unlikely to see the light of day. All three films have reasonable transfers, with some evident grain and a number of minor flaws, which probably arose when they were converted from NTSC format. All three films have a Dolby stereo track and the theatrical trailers for extras.

7

Charles Packer