BLIND WOMAN'S CURSE (1970) 怪談昇り竜 directed by Teruo Ishii Production: Nikkatsu Distribution = Dainichi Utsuhai June 20, 1970 85 minutes Fujicolor Cinemascope Meiko Kaji as Akemi Tachibana Hoki Tokuda as Aiko Gouda Makoto Sato as Tani Shouichi Toru Abe as Dobashi Shiro Otsuji as Senba-tatsu Before Lady Snowblood and before Female Prisoner Scorpion movies - in fact, around the time she was first getting noticed in the Stray Cat Rock series, SOMEONE had already figured out that the soft spoken, demure Meiko Kaji had an onscreen intensity about her that was suited for the oncoming stylistic shift in Japanese cinema. (Meiko Kaji) Blind Woman's Curse is the story of Akemi (Meiko Kaji) who has assumed the role of her father's crime organization in pre-modern Japan. While fighting a rival clan, she accidently blind's the leader's sister. She notices a stray black cat lapping up the blood from it - cursing her... (Meiko Kaji ) After getting out of prison, she tries to tak...
BATTLES WITHOUT HONOR AND HUMANITY:
DEADLY FIGHT IN HIROSHIMA (1973)
aka Hiroshima Death Match
aka Hiroshima Death Match
仁義なき戦い 広島死闘篇
directed by Kinji Fukasaku
Production: Toei (Kyoto studio)
April 28, 1973
100 minutes Fujicolor Cinemascope
April 28, 1973
100 minutes Fujicolor Cinemascope
Bunta Sugawara as Shozo Hirono
Kinya Kitaoji as Shoji Yamanaka
Nobuo Kaneko as Yoshio Yamamori
Shinichi Chiba as Katsutoshi Otomo
Meiko Kaji as Yasuko Uehara
Hiroshi Nawa as Tsuneo Muraoka
As close to a love story as these movies will probably get, it still takes a major back seat to the same double crossing, killing, and quest for power as the first movie. Bunta Sugawara as Shozo Hirono is still here, but this isn't his story - it's Shoji Yamanaka's (Kinya Kitaoji), a nobody who falls in love with a yakuza boss' niece (wonderfully played by Meiko Kaji), only to have the ugly world he's a part of pull them apart, as he tries to navigate through the chaos.
I can see why director Kinji Fukasaku told this story - it says a lot about the people who survive and the people who don't... honor and humanity aren't the only things missing from these people.
(Kinya Kiaoji)
Shoji Yamanaka (Kiaoji) is released from prison (where he met and befriended Shozo) and meets a waitress who lets him eat for free - only to be attacked and beaten by a gang led by Katsutoshi Otomo (Shinichi Chiba).
Shinichi 'Sonny' Chiba as Otomo, the son of a Yakuza Boss, is a character right up his style of acting - he's wild and out of control and bit scary to anyone he encounters, and Chiba of course, plays that to the hilt. Later in the movie, Sugawara and Chiba confront each other, and even though it doesn't have the payoff you'd like - it's still a cool moment...
(Shinichi Chiba)
Anyway, the senior Otomo saves Yamanaka andis offered a place in the Yakuza by Muraoka, the waitress Yasuko's uncle. The love affair they begin, gets him run out of town by Muraoka later though - and his life gets more and more complicated as he tries to fit in to the ruthless life of the Yakuza and yet have feelings for Yasuko (played wonderfully, as always, by the great Meiko Kaji).
(Meiko Kaji)
The lesson in all of this is that these men are not like regular people - there is no place for love. It is about power, and anything else that gets in the way will eventually get steamrolled by it.
You can be crazy - you can be in love - you can be smart - you can have a lot of money... but it's only the craftiest and the shrewdist who survive...
(Box Set Cover for Volume Two)
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