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No Borders, No Limits:
1960s Nikkatsu Action Cinema

From April 5 through May 23, the Gene Siskel Film Center, in collaboration with The Japan America Society of Chicago, presents a weekly series of seven films entitled, No Borders, No Limits: 1960s Nikkatsu Action Cinema.

During their peak, action films from the Nikkatsu studio evoked a cinematic world neither foreign nor Japanese. It was a mix of the two, where Japanese tough guys had the swagger, moves, and even the long legs of Hollywood movie heroes. The genre included yakuza movies, urban dramas, jazz-inflected youth pictures, Eastern “Westerns,” French New Wave-inspired emotional dramas, and crime films. Audiences responded to this reflection of their postwar, Western-influenced world with enthusiasm, making Nikkatsu’s “Diamond Line” of male leads, beginning with Yujiro Ishihara, some of the top stars of the decade. (Introduction courtesy of Outcast Cinema)

Never before seen in the United States, these films are being screened in rare prints imported from Japan for this North American tour. Because the prints are unsubtitled, they will be presented with computerized “soft subtitles” that are projected live onto the film image. We are grateful to The Japan America Society of Chicago for providing the “subtitle-launchers” whose skill and hard work make these screenings possible: Takako Harasawa, Natsuko Imamura, Satoko Ogi, Yoko Wada, and Masayo Yamakawa.

No Borders, No Limits was curated by film historian/critic Mark Schilling. The Gene Siskel Film Center especially thanks Marc Walkow, Outcast Cinema; John F. Bukacek, Satoko Ogi, The Japan America Society of Chicago; and Michael Raine, University of Chicago.

Reduced admission!
Members of The Japan America Society of Chicago admitted for $5 to any Nikkatsu Action screening.

VELVET HUSTLER
(aka LIKE A SHOOTING STAR)
(KURENAI NO NAGAREBOSHI)
1967, Toshio Masuda, Japan, 97 min.
With Tetsuya Watari, Jo Shishido

This portrait of a young hood is almost a sequel to last month’s THE WARPED ONES, with Watari (TOKYO DRIFTER) as a chilled-out, ten-years-after version of that film’s hero. He plays a cool-cat yakuza exiled to the sleepy port city of Kobe after knocking off a Tokyo mob moss. Bored into an existential abyss (“I think about whether there’s anything worth thinking about”), he is roused to action by the arrival of a sardonic hit-man (Shishido) and a beautiful woman (Ruriko Asaoka) who carries the intoxicating scent of longed-for Tokyo. In Japanese with English subtitles. 35mm widescreen. (MR)

Friday, May 2, 6:00 pm

GANGSTER VIP
(BURAI YORI DAIKANBU)
1968, Toshio Masuda, Japan, 93 min.
With Tetsuya Watari, Kyosuke Machida

Tetsuya Watari (VELVET HUSTLER) delivers another memorable performance in this blood-soaked tale of yakuza honor, which includes a classic pinkie-chopping scene. He plays “Goro the Slasher,” an expert blade-man who comes out of prison to find himself the odd man out in a vicious gang war. Gritty and stylish, the film features high-speed tracking shots and a spectacular knife fight in a maze of rainy alleyways. In Japanese with English subtitles. 35mm widescreen. (MR)

Friday, May 16, 6:00 pm

ROUGHNECK
(ARAKURE)
1969, Yasuharu Hasebe, Japan, 86 min.
With Akira Kobayashi, Masako Izumi

In director Hasebe’s yakuza film, Akira Kobayashi plays Yuji, a hoodlum who becomes involved with an ototobun (younger gang brother) trying to go straight. Yuji soon takes up with a hot springs geisha, the lover of a local boss, whose gang is facing stiff competition from an outside rival. Kobayashi shines as the charismatic antihero, who remains likable for all his swagger and shiftiness. In Japanese with English subtitles. 35mm widescreen. (Japan Society)

Please note that PLAINS WANDERER, originally scheduled for May 9, has been canceled.

Friday, May 23, 6:00 pm

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