復讐浄瑠璃坂 / Fukushu jorurizaka / Revenge at Joruri Slope pt. I + II [1955]

Release date: December 11th and December 21st, 1955

Director: Kyotaro Namiki & Buntaro Futagawa

Studio: Produced by Takarazuka, released by Toho

Cast: Kanjuro Arashi, Denjiro Okochi, Senjaku Nakamura, Ryotaro Oki, Chikage Ogi, Tamao Nakamura, Akihiko Hirata et al.

Availability: VHS releases. Infrequent theater screenings. No other home media or streaming availability.

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Today in the "I wish these were more accessible" department, let's look at a duology of films with a cast full of jidaigeki heavy-hitters that have somehow not had a decent home media release in the past 70 years. The first film was subtitled "Ambush at Onibushi Pass" [Onibushi-toge shougeki], the second was subtitled "Bloody Battle at Dawn" [Akatsuki no kessen].

These films are based on an actual historical event, which I'll only give the broad strokes of here since I'm not terribly familiar with it. An argument broke out during a memorial service for Tadamasa Okudaira, former lord of the Utsunomiya domain, on March 2nd, 1668, between members of separate branches of the Okudaira clan, supposedly in response to one of them being late to the service. One man was killed, and in response not only his killer but also his killer's family were punished, stripped of their stipends, and some sent into exile, including a 12-year-old boy. The boy, Genpachi, drew popular support, and some members of the Okudaira clan abandoned their posts and became ronin in service of revenge against the murderer. Ultimately, a group of 42 ronin raided the mansion where the murderer, Hayato Okudaira, was hiding. This occurred 30 years before the more famous Ako Roshi incident, popularized across the world as Chushingura or some variation on the title "47 Ronin".

The story was disseminated widely throughout the country (which is why it should probably be taken with a grain of salt) in various contemporary publications, and was also adapted into plays and other forms of storytelling, including, eventually, this set of two films by Toho that we're going to look at today.

Jorurizaka in 2017. Credit to Tokuzo Edomura.

Kyotaro Namiki also directed Kurama Tengu Goyo-to ihen, a favorite of mine which we looked at quite a while ago (it's the one with Dr. Serizawa in it). Aside from that, his career doesn't seem to have produced much in the way of hits; he worked with Kanjūrō Arashi's production company on many occasions as well as Shōzō Makino's, and was active from 1929 to 1960. The two Joruri Slope movies were actually co-directed by him and Buntaro Futakawa, brother of Eisuke Takizawa, who did another dear favorite of mine, Tetsuwan namida ari. Futakawa was 56 at the time, and retired after directing these two films, dying only nine years later. Namiki, on the other hand, lived to be 99, and wrote a little bit after retiring from filmmaking.

A few other names from the staff: the original work was written by Sanjugo Naoki, a man of many pen names who also knew Masahiro Makino, and it was adapted to the screen by Ryo Takei and Rokuhei Susukita, two people who do not have Wikipedia pages. Takei has writing credits for many things we're familiar with here, such as the two Tea-Picker's Song of Goodbye films and Wharf with the Weeping Girl. Susukita worked for over 50 years and wrote a whole hell of a lot of things, but these movies are the only ones he wrote for that are relevant to our interests.

Speaking of writing, there was also a manga adaptation of these films which I unfortunately can't find any pictures of besides a Mandarake listing.

Hirata plays a character named Kyubei Okudaira. He is on Hayato's side, and is one of Chikage Ogi's character Kikuno's three brothers. He gets killed in the second film. That is about all I can tell you. We have three press sheets featuring his character:

Hirata's character on the left-hand side, third from top

We love grainy photos here. Hirata's character is fourth from left in the row of portraits, recognizable by his chonmage and because Toho's in-house portrait artist/s was (were?) pretty consistent in the way they drew him.

I swear that at some point I saw a larger version of this image and could make out that Hirata is on the very bottom right.

Fortunately, though, we don't have to rely entirely on grainy pictures of press sheets. The last time a VHS tape of the first film was sold at auction, the seller decided to take screencaps of nearly the entire movie and include them in the auction photos, so we do have some actual stills featuring Kyubei as well. (The full listing in case for some odd reason you have a desire to see other parts of the movie.)

As for screenings, both of these films have played, like every other Japanese movie ever made, at Laputa Asagaya. They have also been aired on pay-per-view TV at least once in 2021. I don't have a lot to go off of in terms of critical reception, but one reviewer felt very strongly that bad character writing made the second part take a sharp downturn and essentially ruined the rest of the film. Another reviewer calls the films "fairly entertaining".

That, unfortunately, is kind of it. It's surprising there isn't more out there about these, considering that they do have a physical release. The tapes seem to be quite rare, but rest assured that if they ever do come up for auction again, no matter how expensive, I'll be getting my hands on them.

Furai Ninpocho, But For Real This Time

It's always incredibly satisfying when I can follow up on a previous post about a rare movie after I have actually obtained a copy of that movie. MASSIVE thanks to wonderful human being Keith from Vintage Ninja for this one.

Since I wrote about this movie previously, there's no need for preamble, so I'll get right into it. But just a quick recap before we start: This is a comedic period piece with a trio of chuckleheads as its main characters, namely Kiyoshi Atsumi as Akugenta the womanizer, Makoto Satō as Jinkyobei who wants to take over a castle someday, and Juro Sasa as Benkei the super-strong warrior monk, all fighting against the Fuuma ninja clan, headed by Akihiko Hirata as Kotaro Fuuma. I was very excited to see this and to see Hirata play such a famous ninja.

The film opens with some sweet animated credits and an instrumental piece in the background that wouldn't be out of place in an Italian restaurant. The place-setting is during Hideyoshi Toyotomi's march towards Odawara Castle, which is held by the Hojo clan, but we're focusing on these three rascals rather than that action. 

Akugenta, Jinkyobei and Benkei are playing cho-han with some footsoldiers. Oh, sorry, I meant strip-cho-han. With loaded dice. Their aim is to steal the soldiers' clothes because the soldiers had been on a mission to help the women of Odawara Castle escape the siege. Our trio of course wants to get in on any action involving girls.

Having bamboozled the rest of the party that was escorting the women to safety, the trio, disguised as samurai, attempts to put the moves on them. Akugenta produces a rose and whispers sweet nothings to them all. This, for some reason, is wildly successful, and all the women fall in love with him immediately, and take their clothes off. (I will remind you that the author of the source material is known specifically for the erotic nature of his novels.)

Before the guys can react, they're enveloped in a strange mist. From the mist they are ambushed by your standard jidaigeki ninjas-disguised-as-monks gang - the women were an illusion. Well, all but one; one of the monks is really Princess Maya (Yuki Nakagawa), who chides Akugenta for his boorish behavior. He attempts to seduce her and falls into a big hole.

Princess Maya is the granddaughter of the lord of Oshi Castle, who is being held hostage by the Fuuma clan. She is criticized by Owari-no-kami Maeda (Jotaro Togami), currently holding Odawara, for having left the castle, although she was accompanied by bodyguards (the other fake monks). It's here that Kotaro Fuuma makes his entrance, and it's a great entrance; peeling off from the shadows, heard before he's seen. Kotaro tells Maeda that Oshi Castle will be an important base for their plans to defeat Toyotomi. We also see Ichirō Arashima's Nagoya-dialect-speaking Toyotomi, who seems a bit bored, but is excited to learn that a pretty 17-year-old girl might be in trouble. (Ew.)

I believe this is the only time he's played a ninja.

In the meantime the three stooges scam some folks. They stage a scene where Jinkyobei pretends to cut Akugenta's thumb off and then Benkei "sells" him magical medicine that regrows his thumb. They use the money from this scam to hire some prostitutes. Akugenta can't focus on the women he's hired, though, because he's thinking about Princess Maya. He and his friends sneak off to spy on her. They watch her being introduced to the husband who has been chosen for her - Samanosuke (Haruya Kato) - and call him an impolite name which I believe can be translated roughly as "wet noodle". (If I were inclined to take some further liberties I would perhaps translate this as "weaksauce".) They attempt to jump a wall and "rescue" Maya but are foiled by Fuuma ninjas.

Girl the eyeshadow.

Okay. Slay.

A ronin (we later learn he is Sukejuro Aohashi of the Iga clan) who the trio had a run-in with earlier appears and smooth-talks them into joining the Fuuma clan, explaining that if he joins them, they'd be able to be among the contingent of Maya's special guards. They are taken back to the Fuuma clan's secret cave base and meet with Kotaro, who tries to convince them to join. They're reluctant at first, but being shown the secret ninja harem seals the deal. Kotaro uses some ninjitsu to force them to reveal their names and identities, and then orders Akugenta to kill Aohashi as a test of strength, which he refuses to do. Aohashi then dies by Ninpo Spear That Sets Your Whole Body On Fire when he tries to escape anyway.

Maya travels to Oshi Castle to see her grandfather about the arranged marriage that she wants no part of, but her palanquin is ambushed by Iga ninjas. Her Fuuma bodyguards fight them off but become so carried away in their own spat (the Iga vs. Fuuma rivalry is long and storied; this is Ninjas 101) that the trio makes off with Maya. However, the palanquin that they thought was carrying her really only contained Jinkyobei, bound and gagged; the Fuuma bodyguards had taken her away. The trio still wants to get to Oshi Castle, though, so they hitchhike inside a cart full of radishes with some women.

There certainly are daikon in the cart ("daikon" can also mean "ham actor").

It was a trap, of course. The women were Fuuma ninjas in disguise. (The music that accompanies the reveal scene is almost comedically over-the-top. It doesn't feel like a big enough deal to require a musical cue.) The trio is captured but escape by convincing their Fuuma captors that the secret behind the Odawara Castle intrigue is that there's a big jewel hidden there. They promise to tell the Fuuma men where the jewel is and end up trapping them in a hut.

The trio admits to themselves that the Fuuma are a force to be reckoned with, and conclude that they need to undergo Fuuma training to be able to match their skills. They return to Kotaro and ask to be put through ninja boot camp which involves getting buried to the neck in sand and a very goofy training montage, during which they try to do the disappear-in-a-puff-of-smoke thing but fail, get chucked into boiling water (Jinkyobei loses his clothes somehow), are menaced by flaming torches, and are given gross stuff to eat. This all does nothing for their ninja skills, but it is pretty funny.

They're sucky ninjas, but it's war, so Kotaro hires them without them having completed their full course of ninja training. They are ordered to Odawara Castle to further refine their skills. Another fairly goofy sequence follows where Jinkyobei and Akugenta (Benkei isn't there because he sucks too bad) "demonstrate" their new "skills" against some of the Fuuma guys.

get a load of this guy

While this is happening, the Iga clan attacks the castle and kidnaps Maya on horseback. Kotaro and the Fuuma gang intercept them and we get the film's only really lengthy swordplay scene, with the Fuuma and our trio (mostly the trio) versus the Iga ninja. Both clans want Maya for their own purposes, but they are also bitter rivals, which seems more important than the princess. Kotaro seems to have Maya for good and is leading her by force across a rickety suspension bridge, but Akugenta swoops in on zipline and rescues her. Still pursued, Kotaro and his ninjas corner the trio in a cave and think they have them trapped.

But the trio are halfway to being Fuuma ninjas and have some skills of their own. They lure the ninjas into the cave and roll a big rock in front of the entrance (while forgetting that Benkei is also still inside). There follows a very funny moment where Jinkyobei and Akugenta are essentially Wack-a-Mole-ing Fuuma guys ("omae ja nai" - "not you") while trying to extract Benkei without letting the ninjas out. They then rescue the princess and thus ends this chapter in ninja history.

That was mildly amusing. I watch a lot of movies that feel like they either need to be juuust a little bit funnier or juuust a little bit more serious, and I can't tell if this was one of those or if the jokes just weren't landing. It doesn't help that the three guys are lecherous creeps and it's played for laughs. Hirata as Kotaro was at least fun; he does a good job being evil, as he always does, but this Kotaro is just plain evil, not the kind of "evil and loving it" that we've seen Hirata do in things like Ebirah, Horror of the Deep or Rainbowman. And it's nice that he's in the movie - I've been watching so much stuff lately where he's in one scene and then leaves. So, not the best movie ever, but still worthwhile! If I get my hands on the sequel, you will know about it.

See this movie for yourself on archive.org if you wish.

断崖の決闘 / Dangai no ketto / Duel at the Precipice (aka Kill the Killer!) [1961]

Release date: June 27th, 1961

Director: Kozo Saeki
Studio: Takarazuka Motion Picture Co., distributed by Toho
Cast: Yosuke Natsuki, Tadao Nakamaru, Kumi Mizuno, Tatsuya Mihashi, Keiko Awaji, Akihiko Hirata, Michiyo Tamaki, Tetsuro Tamba et al.
Availability: No home media or streaming release.

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The film we're looking at today was included in the 1962 edition of Toho Films, Toho's catalogue of releases that were available for licensing and distribution to international markets. Something interesting to point out is that while international cuts of Japanese films often shave down the run time, whatever Toho did to the English version of this film actually extended it - the original was 77 minutes, the version distributed by Toho International was 85. Added B-roll, perhaps? Unfortunately, we probably won't ever know.

The production crew of this film is largely unknown to us Toho fans, since this was produced by Takarazuka (even though the catalogue says "Produced by Toho Co., Ltd"... hmmm). Director Kozo Saeki helmed a lot of the very popular Ekimae films that ran alongside the President series for a number of years throughout the 1960s, but he actually got his start as a director during the silent film era, and was never exclusive to Toho, working for many different studios throughout his ultimately quite short life (he died in 1972 at the age of 60). In fact, the Ekimae series were not technically Toho productions: they were produced by Tokyo Eiga, a subsidiary of Toho. They certainly earned Toho a good deal of cash, though.

If we're familiar with anybody on the production side of this film, it would probably be Riichirō Manabe, a prolific composer who did the soundtrack for - among other things, but most notable to us - Godzilla vs. Hedorah and Godzilla vs. Megalon.

Now, let's look at how Toho sold the film to English-speaking markets.

Hirata's character is named Otaki but the copy-writer for the catalogue seems to have mis-transliterated it as "Otake". Otaki is the boss of a drug ring and sounds like a generally nefarious person according to other synopses, but was not the main villain and eventually had a change of heart, handing over a list of the drug dealers he worked with to one of the good guys just before dying.

long poster is long

Now, just because a movie was included in that Toho Films catalogue doesn't necessarily mean that it was picked up for distribution. In fact, I can't find any record of Kill the Killer! playing in U.S. theaters, nor any stateside mention of the film under any other name. (I did find out during my research that Dobunezumi Sakusen got a U.S. release, which is kind of insane.)

So, unfortunately I don't have any English-language newspaper blurbs to show. Japanese reviewers imply that Saeki, who worked primarily in comedies, may not have been the ideal director for the film - adding in comical touches that didn't fit the storyline - and that perhaps Senkichi Taniguchi would have been better (give the man a break, though, he was already directing about a bazillion movies for Toho per year). Read a more extensive review from my friend (not really my friend, but I like their reviews and they always put "-sama" after Hirata's name) over here.

As for screenings within Japan, the film played in theaters in 2019 and was broadcast on television in 2021. So not terribly obscure, but definitely not available for anybody to watch any time they want. It's a shame that this never got picked up for stateside distribution, because a lot of Toho's early '60s crime films did manage to stick around after being exported and are readily obtainable today - The Last Gunfight, Merciless Trap, Big Shots Die at Dawn, et cetera. This could have been one of them if only a few theater owners had been interested enough to license it.

風来忍法帖 / Fūrai ninpōchō / Homeless Ninja Trick Book (and sequel) (1965/1968)

Release date: May 16, 1965 / May 8, 1968

Director: Tetsuhiro Kawasaki

Studio: Takarazuka Motion Picture Co. Ltd.; distributed by Toho

Cast: Kiyoshi Atsumi, Makoto Satō, Juro Sasa, Yuki Nakagawa, Ichirō Arashima, Akihiko Hirata, Susumu Fujita, Toshio Chiba, Kyoji Kusakawa, Makoto Kawaji, Jotaro Togami, Haruya Kato, Junji Sakai et al.

Availability: No home media or streaming release. Semi-infrequent theater screenings and television broadcasts within Japan. Now available on archive.org.

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Note: I eventually managed to get my hands on this movie and took a look at it here. I will leave the rest of this post as I had written it before I watched the film.

We all like ninjas, right? Let's look at a movie with ninjas in it. Two movies, actually, since I'll be covering both the first film and its sequel. (Disclaimer: I wrote the majority of this post on a large dose of caffeine.)

This is a lewd gesture that basically implies having romantic liaisons with a woman.

Both of these films were based on a novel by Fūtarō Yamada. Yamada was a very prolific and popular novelist who wrote extensively within the jidaigeki genre. From the mid-50s up to as recently as last year, film studios couldn't seem to get enough of him; Toei, NTV, Kadokawa/Daiei, King Records and Takarazuka - just to name a few - have all dipped into Yamada's back catalogue. (His work was also the basis for the acclaimed Samurai Reincarnation.) Yamada was known for the elements of eroticism within his work, something that really was not emphasized until the rise of V-Cinema, when directors could get as nasty with it as they wanted. Once Yamada's novels began to be adapted to V-Cin, directors and writers would actually start inserting even more eroticism and grotesquerie into their adaptations than had been present in the original material. But the films we're talking about today came out of Takarazuka/Toho in the mid-60s, so while a lot of the humor may be on the racy side, there's no way it's going to approach, say, pinku eiga territory.

The book.

The specific work that Fūrai ninpōchō and its sequel were based off of was the ninth installment in Yamada's long-running Ninpocho series, published in 1963. This series is, in essence, Now! That's What I Call Ninjas. It features a who's-who of famous jidaigeki frequent fliers. Continuity is optional: the setting is somewhere around the Sengoku and Edo period, but characters who factually were not alive in the same era are depicted interacting with each other.

How many Ninpocho works are there, you ask? An ungodly amount. Yamada's Wikipedia article claims 28 full-length and serialized novels, but also mentions that Yamada himself stated that there were 31. There are more short stories than I can count.

Our films are set during the reign of Hideyoshi Toyotomi. Several other real, historical personages are featured in the film: Kiyoshi Atsumi plays the Heian-period military commander Minamoto no Yoshihira, who is here called Akugenta; Juro Sasa plays a warrior-monk who may or may not be based on the historical Benkei; Makoto Satō plays a character named Jinkyobei whose historical basis (if there is any) I am uncertain of. All three are generally rascals and cheaters who get themselves into various mishaps; I should mention that these are comedies, which should be apparent from Atsumi's presence as the lead.

Satō, Sasa, Atsumi and somebody's underpants

Akihiko Hirata has a distinguished role as Kotaro Fuma, leader of the legendary Fuma clan of ninjas. From what I have heard his performance as Kotaro was "good". There is no shortage of Kotaro Fumas on film given that the Fuma clan are some of the most famous ninjas; a very select few appearances include Lupin III, Ninja Captor, Sukeban Deka III, at least one CLAMP manga, and a good deal of Naruto. This isn't dusty old history - this is just Japanese pop culture. As with many historical figures, impossible legends grew up around Kotaro Fuma, such as the rumor that he was 7' 2" and had fangs. I'm presuming Hirata plays him as a normal guy, but as is usually the case with pop culture ninjas, he does have supernatural powers.

Since these movies aren't actually that obscure within their home country, I've read some impressions written by people who have watched them. One reviewer praises the miscellaneous jokes in the first film such as Ichirō Arashima speaking Nagoya dialect in his performance as Hideyoshi, but overall calls it a "bad work". Another reviewer says the color and analog filming looks nice, but the story is incoherent. On the whole, people don't seem that fond of either of these movies, but it sounds like they are at least entertaining.

The sequel, subtitled Happō yabure¹, was produced in 1966 but shelved due to poor reviews until another film starring Kiyoshi Atsumi became a runaway hit in 1968. Although the Fuma clan seems to have taken a beating in the first film, Kotaro sticks around, since Hirata is in the sequel. From a detailed plot summary, I can infer that Kotaro does die at the end of the second film, but gives a sort of "you haven't seen the last of me" speech as he does. (There would be no further films; I'm unsure if Kotaro returns in further installments of the source material.)

I've only seen this poster once, being used at a 2016 screening of the first film.

That's about all I can give you. Vintage Ninja has some screencaps of the opening credits. A DVD was available for purchase within the U.S. at some point, but I did some poking around in that regard and was unsuccessful at obtaining a copy. Who knows what the future holds, though. Maybe someday.

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1 Galbraith gives the sequel's English title as "Homeless Ninja Trick Book: Lost in All Directions", but happō yabure is a term that means "full of holes"/"vulnerable to criticism" (as an argument), so make of that what you will.

鉄腕涙あり / Tetsuwan namida ari / Even the Mighty Shed Tears (1953)

Release date: October 27, 1953

Director: Hidesuke Takizawa

Studio: Toho/Takarazuka

Cast: Akihiko Hirata, Kahoru Uji, Sachio Sakai, Kyosuke Segawa, Shirayuki Shikibu et al.

Availability: No known home media release. No known recent screenings. The entire film is on DailyMotion in two parts, here (part 1) and here (part 2). Good quality print but the aspect ratio is stretched, I recommend sticking it into VLC and fixing it. Or you can install Stretch Video, my favorite browser extension developed by a professor of philosophy.

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This has been one of my most sought-after films for a long time, and it somehow eluded me that it had been up there on DailyMotion for anyone to clap eyes on for the past several years.

Some factual background: this film was based on a 1952 novel by Bunjiro Asakura called Chōsen oni and featured heavy involvement from Takarazuka Revue, an all-female theater troupe founded in 1913 and still very much going strong. Kahoru Uji was a member of the troupe, and the score was provided by the music club arm of the institution. 

Here's a poster stolen off AucFan. The jpeg, I mean, I didn't actually steal the poster.

Obviously this thing is very, very not subtitled. I'm relying on online summaries and my own poor Japanese skills to figure out the plot. I encourage you to go watch this for yourself if you're interested.

The reason why I was so interested in seeing this over anything else is that this is, as far as I'm aware, literally the only time in Hirata's entire 30ish-year career where he plays the protagonist. Not the sidekick, not the important tertiary role, not the scientist or the villain or the villain's boss or something. The main character. Even before I watched this I could never understand why he didn't get any lead roles, and after having seen it I understand even less: he's fantastic in this. His character experiences visible growth throughout the arc of his story and Hirata conveys the ups and downs of Ryusaku's life whole-heartedly.

So let's move on to the actual film.

The storyline is fairly predictable and easy to follow. Hirata plays Ryusaku, a college student. Him and his girlfriend, Natsuko, are jumped by a bunch of gangsters while coming home from a movie, and they knock Ryusaku nearly unconscious and take Natsuko offscreen. Afterward, Ryusaku has a conversation with a friend in which the possibility of involving the police is brought up but dismissed (again, I do not understand much Japanese, I'm winging this super hard). Ryusaku instead resolves to get really good at karate in the hopes that nothing like the incident with the gang would ever happen again.

This is "Akihiko Hirata Does Karate: The Movie". That's it. That's the film.

He also gets a part-time job doing... uh, whatever this is:

Some kind of disinfectant service, I guess? Something something covid.

He partners up with Sachio Sakai's character, going door-to-door doing... that. On his rounds he runs into Natsuko, who doesn't want anything to do with him, and has left to start a new relationship and become a singer in a nightclub. We then get one of those scenes that are in every Toho movie of a girl singing in a swanky '50s club. Later, Ryusaku visits Natsuko at the nightclub to try to reconcile. This doesn't work out and he ends up slapping her (Ah, the '50s. Also he gets slapped later too, so, you know, equality.), she asks him to leave, and he gets into a scuffle with the guys who work at the bar, but of course this time around he knows karate.

The resulting brawl obviously gets him in some trouble both at his dojo and his part-time job. In the meantime, one of his fellow students, Sachiko, meets up with him and tries to talk to him but (from what I understood) he makes up some excuse, says he doesn't want to see her and literally sprints off in the opposite direction. He then gets fabulously drunk, gets into yet another fight with some street toughs, and ends up spooking them all into running away.

There's another woman here who I'm not sure how to fit into the picture; her and Ryusaku had previously joked about him being her "bodyguard" and while he's still drunk he stumbles back to her place. She actually tries to put the moves on him, but he doesn't appear to be into it and leaves after giving her a bundle of money(?).

Girl, me too.

Eventually Ryusaku's friends get him into a karate tournament between his university's dojo and a rival to try to raise his spirits; he seemingly wins this tournament. Afterward, he gets a letter from Katsuko telling him to meet her at a shipyard, but when he gets there, some other guy shows up instead. He asks where she is, and I didn't catch everything the other guy says, but he tells Ryusaku that the letter was a fake. Several other goons step out from the shadows. In a repeat of the beginning of the film, they all mob him... but remember, he's super good at karate now. Katsuko does eventually show up, but one of the thugs shoots her. At the last possible moment, she gets off a shot too, and kills the head of the gang before dying in Ryusaku's arms. The film ends on a high note, though, with everybody back at college and Sachiko and Ryusaku seemingly getting together for good.

WOW. So in addition to being one of the rarest titles in Hirata's filmography, Tetsuwan Namida Ari is actually really good. I'm sure I'm missing a lot due to the language barrier, but to me the film is excellent at conveying the story of a person who experiences something traumatic and makes a decision about how to respond to it that ultimately leads down a difficult path. When Ryusaku decides to pursue karate out of a desire for revenge, it doesn't lead to him gaining the ability to protect the people he cares about, but just gets him into trouble instead. It's only once he gets a handle on his own feelings of desperation and regret that he can use karate for good.

And I gotta say it's really funny to see Akihiko Hirata doing karate. I don't know anything about karate, so I have NO idea if Hirata's actually good at it or even good at faking being good at it. I did notice that, while he does some mirror sparring and brick-breaking and a couple of judo shoulder-flips, during the tournament scene at the end, you don't see him fighting his opponent; the camera keeps cutting to frontal shots of him instead of showing him actually doing anything to the other guy. But again, I can't really judge his karate skills, this is an area I have no expertise in whatsoever outside of watching a lot of Sonny Chiba movies.

I apologize heartily, because this post is long enough already, but if you're still with me, there's one last mystery here. This is going to be bothering me now. While watching this I remembered something from Hirata's IMDb page:

He absolutely does not have an eyepatch at any time in this movie. He's got kind of a bandage around his head after he gets beat up by the gang at the beginning, but it doesn't cover either of his eyes. I'm pretty sure I've heard this "fact" echoed at least a couple other times, and I am now in a position to say with 100% confidence that it's wrong. (I'm very fun at parties.) Meaning either somebody totally made it up, or there's another movie floating around where he wears an eyepatch (besides the obvious ones, I mean). Considering that that quote also mentions Tetsuwan namida ari as his "first" film role - which it is not, The Last Embrace is - I'm thinking it's possible that whoever wrote it got mixed up with The Last Embrace. But unfortunately, if that's the case, I'll never know; The Last Embrace seems all but lost.

Anyway that's it from me today. See you next time. I hope at least one person reads this and finds it interesting.