Hishakaku and Kiratsune: A Tale of Two Yakuza

Overview

With his penultimate film, Uchida revisited one of his popular prewar titles, 1936’s Theatre of Life, an adaptation of Shiro Ozaki’s eponymous novel. Three-time Seijun Suzuki collaborator Goro Tanada wrote a gangsterized adaptation of Ozaki’s story for Uchida at a time when the yakuza had eclipsed the samurai genre as Toei's main cash crop. Protagonist Hishakaku murders a man in a quarrel over a barmaid and goes to jail. In his temporary absence, his girlfriend Otoyo, a former geisha, falls for Hishakaku’s brother, inciting a dangerous love triangle that, in typical yakuza fashion, ends tragically.

Details

Status

Released

Release date

October 25, 1968

Original language

Japanese

Spoken languages

Japanese

Countries

Japan

Production

Toei Company

Cast

Koji Tsuruta,Tomisaburō Wakayama,Sumiko Fuji,Ken Takakura,Takeya Nakamura,Minoru Ōki,Kinzō Shin,Bin Amatsu,Rinichi Yamamoto,Kunio Muraiand 14 more

Director

Tomu Uchida

Writer

Gorō Tanada,Shiro Ozaki

Cinematography

Hanjirō Nakazawa

Music

Masaru Satō

Budget

Not recorded

Revenue

Not recorded

IMDb

View on IMDb