Kurenai no nagareboshi (1967)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Toshio Masuda

Writers:

Kaneo Ikegami (writer)
Toshio Masuda (writer)

Genre:

Action

Tagline:

Killing is easy; love is murder.

Plot:

A young yakuza hitman named Goro does a job and needs to hideout away from Tokyo for a while. He hangs...

Plot Keywords:

Hitman | Organized Crime | Harbor | Car | Rich Girl

Cast

Tetsuya Watari	...	Goro
Ruriko Asaoka
Kayo Matsuo
Tatsuya Fuji
Ryotaro Sugi
Jo Shishido

Also Known As:

Crimson Comet (USA) (literal English title)
Like a Shooting Star (USA)
Velvet Hustler (USA) (video title)

Runtime:

USA:97 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Company:

Nikkatsu

Killer Japanese 60's mod b-thriller

This one's a gem. The story and to some extent the style are influenced by Goddard's "Breathless". We have the cool elements of a macho yakuza picture with pseudo-new wave flourishes. The slight pretense of being something deep never gets in the way of the fun. Watari Tetsuya is brilliant as the rough yet suave killer anti-hero and Asaoka Ruriko is so alluring as the sophisticated rich girl. There are cool humorous touches such as the hole in the killers hat and the great campy dance hall sequences with 60s go go music and chicks. I enjoyed this so much because I found it to be an example of a real classy take on the exploitation picture. I think it's from Nikkatsu who churned out these "program pictures", basically formula b-movies. Here we have been given such a film and while it's careful not to get so bizarre as to disarm the target audience (such as the great Suzuki Seijun had a tendency to do) it does show a distinct flare for a certain camp mod coolness.