DIRECTOR: Suzuki Seijun
PRODUCER: Nakagawa Tetsurō ​    
PRODUCTION CO: Nikkatsu
​​SCREENPLAY: Kawauchi Yasunori
PHOTOGRAPHY: Mine Shigeyoshi
EDITOR: Inoue Shinya
MUSIC: Kaburagi Hajime
WITH: Watari Tetsuya (Hondo Tetsuya 'Phoenix Tetsu'), Matsubara Chieko (Chiharu), Nitani Hideaki (Kenji Aizawa), Kawaji Tamio (Tatsuzo the Viper), Yoshida Tsuyoshi (Keiichi), Kita Ryūji (Kurata), Esumi Hideaki (Otsuka), Go Eiji (Tanaka) 

FESTIVALS: Tokyo

REVIEWS

“In this jazzy gangster film, reformed killer Tetsu's attempt to go straight is thwarted when his former cohorts call him back to Tokyo to help battle a rival gang. Director Seijun Suzuki's onslaught of stylized violence and trippy colors is equal parts Russ Meyer, Samuel Fuller, and Nagisa Oshima – an anything-goes, in-your-face rampage. Tokyo Drifter is a delirious highlight of the brilliantly excessive Japanese cinema of the sixties.”

​– Masters of Cinema

“With Suzuki, style is not only content, it also serves to critique and redefine the entire iconography of the crime film. In Tokyo Drifter, Suzuki employs outré lighting effects, intentionally artificial-looking sets, dynamic widescreen compositions, and musical interpolations to transform a routine gangster plot into a bold and experimental example of the expressive possibilities of film. Starting with the absurdly melancholy theme song and the high-contrast B&W pre-credit fight scene, the film is one coup de cinéma after another. Every sequence features its own sound and color design (melodramatic love songs at the elegant yellow nightclub; rock and jazz for [rival gang leader] Otsuka's day-glo purple headquarters) and the characters are always chromatically integrated with the sets…The final showdown, choreographed like a Fred Astaire dance number, is a rapturous display of camera movement and editing, as the white-clad Tetsuya gracefully glides across the cavernous white nightclub set, throws his gun high into the air, runs and catches it (indicating that a young John Woo might have seen the film) and mows down Otsuka and his black-clad gang. All of Suzuki's dazzling technique would be little more than empty gimmickry if it weren't employed in such a light and playful way, such as in the film's funniest scene, the completely irrelevant brawl in the 'Saloon Western', which is a surreal parody of Hollywood westerns, replete with drunken American sailors, and Japanese bargirls screaming "Don't be a chicken, Yankee" in English. Not surprisingly, Tokyo Drifter's irreverence angered Suzuki's bosses at Nikkatsu, who had ordered him "to play it straight this time", but it's fairly normal compared to his next film for the studio, which finally got him fired.”

​– TV Guide

FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

Wellington  
Monday, 06 March, 6.15pm

Canterbury    
Monday, 20 March, 7.00pm

Nelson     
Tuesday, 28 March, 6.00pm

Dunedin
Wednesday, 05 April, 7.30pm

Hamilton
Monday, 17 April, 6.30pm

Palmerston North
Wednesday, 26 April, 6.00pm

Auckland
​Monday, 01 May, 6.15pm

Whanganui   
Monday, 15 May, 7.00pm

Queenstown  
Tuesday, 25 July, 8.15pm
JAPANESE CLASSICS  selection >> ​