He went to Chicago to shoot film. He came back to shoot people.
Takeshi Ijuin leaves for Chicago to be a cameraman, and a few years later returns to Japan. But he only learned the technique of homicide in Chicago. When he visits the graveyard with his father to pray at his mother's tomb, his father is shot by someone. Now he thirsts for revenge.
Direction
Mori's efficient staging maximizes every yen
Acting
Matsukata's brooding physicality carries the runtime
Cinematography
Graveyard sequence uses fog like grief made visible
Director
Kazuo Mori
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Kazuo Mori directed over 90 films; this grim 80-minute exercise shows his B-picture efficiency at peak form.
Post-war Japanese cinema often sent protagonists abroad to absorb Western violence; Takeshi's Chicago 'education' fits this anxious trope of corrupted returnees.
JP
