RED PEONY GAMBLER (1968)
緋牡丹博徒
directed by Kosaku Yamashita
Production: Toei Studio (Kyoto)
Sept 14, 1968
98 minutes Color
Fuji Junko as Oryu
with Ken Takakura
Tomisaburou Wakayama
Machita Kyosuke
Japanese Star Junko Fuji, in the first of EIGHT of these films, is Oryu, the Red Peony Gambler. After taking up residence with a local yakuza boss in old Japan, she must then protect that family after the boss is killed, and search for the man who killed her father.
An influence upon what would become the Pinky Violence genre, some of those elements are here - strong female protaganist, nice amount of violence and blodshed, and bad guys who are just asking for it. Not as lurid as a Pinky Violence film, it still has a lot going for it.
For one, it has two major stars - Junko Fuji and Ken Takakura - and both just soak up the screen everytime they're on it. Secondly, it's a good solid story from Norifumi Suzuki (writer, NOT the director here - he'd direct the second one) that throws a few interesting touches in to it (Oryu's 'brother' who joins the finale goes right over the top in full battle mode and it's great!).
And lastly, it has a finale that makes it all worth it. Not that the movie is slow - it has it's moments of action throughout - but the finale is pretty entertaining and sort of what we'd come to expect in this and the genre it would influence.
Oh... and she pulled out a gun and used it a few times, which totally surprised me!
The ninkyo films (aka chivalrous yakuza films) of this time were an extremely successful film genre, spawning hundreds of them in a relatively short period of time in the mid 60's to it's slow descent at the beginning of the 70's.
It FAR surpassed in mainstream popularity, the pinky violence films that took influence from it.
Sept 14, 1968
98 minutes Color
Japanese Star Junko Fuji, in the first of EIGHT of these films, is Oryu, the Red Peony Gambler. After taking up residence with a local yakuza boss in old Japan, she must then protect that family after the boss is killed, and search for the man who killed her father.
An influence upon what would become the Pinky Violence genre, some of those elements are here - strong female protaganist, nice amount of violence and blodshed, and bad guys who are just asking for it. Not as lurid as a Pinky Violence film, it still has a lot going for it.
And lastly, it has a finale that makes it all worth it. Not that the movie is slow - it has it's moments of action throughout - but the finale is pretty entertaining and sort of what we'd come to expect in this and the genre it would influence.
Oh... and she pulled out a gun and used it a few times, which totally surprised me!
The ninkyo films (aka chivalrous yakuza films) of this time were an extremely successful film genre, spawning hundreds of them in a relatively short period of time in the mid 60's to it's slow descent at the beginning of the 70's.
It FAR surpassed in mainstream popularity, the pinky violence films that took influence from it.
It FAR surpassed in mainstream popularity, the pinky violence films that took influence from it.
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