Tokyo Drifter Blu-ray Review

Seijun Suzuki’s Tokyo Drifter is a wonderfully dizzy kaleidoscope of a movie. Part drama, part comedy, part musical and filled with pop art sensibilities and a sense of wild abandon almost unheard of in other films of the period, Tokyo Drifter is unique and genre-defying. It won’t be for everyone’s tastes, and it expects viewers to play along with its lapses in continuity and logic, but it’s a fun ride for those who are game.

Tokyo Drifter (Blu-ray)
Directed by Seijun Suzuki

Studio: Criterion
Year: 1966

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1   1080p   AVC codec  
Running Time: 82 minutes
Rating: NR
Audio: PCM 1.0 Japanese
Subtitles: English

Region: A

MSRP: $ 39.95

Release Date: December 13, 2011

Review Date: December 19, 2011

The Film

3.5/5

Former yakuza Kurata (Ryûji Kita) and his right hand assassin Tetsu Hondo (Tetsuya Watari) want to leave the crime world behind and become legitimate businessmen, but rival yakuza Otsuka (Eimei Esumi) and his chief henchman and Tetsu rival Tatsuzo (Tamio Kawaji) won’t allow it. They make every effort the thwart Kurata’s attempts to go straight. When a stray bullet from Kurata’s gun kills Tatsuzo’s girl friend while Tatsuzo and Otsuka are killing Kurata’s business partner Yoshii (Michio Hino), all bets are off as a yakuza war is declared. Tetsu is forced to leave Tokyo for his own safety leaving behind his brokenhearted saloon singer girl friend Chiharu (Chieko Matsubara).

Things get off to an oddball start when the opening sequence is presented in black and white (with but a single color insert suggesting the blood letting to come). From then on, Takeo Kimura’s strikingly minimalist production design (long on primary colors; short of set pieces and props, its closest Hollywood equivalent being the western musical Red Garters made more than a decade earlier) reigns high over a rather predictable story (by Kouhan Kawauchi) of gangland rivalries and deadpan loners vying for supremacy. Seijun Suzuki’s direction is certainly striking. He sets his face-offs in strange locales: on railroad tracks, in a western saloon (where the comic staging of a hullabaloo looks like it was lifted almost verbatim from Blake Edwards’ The Great Race), and in the nightclubs and alleyways frequented by its seedy characters. Suzuki’s staging of one death is particularly stunning: a body collapsing onto a floor of blue-dotted ivory sand photographed from on high for maximum impact. But then, the film is alive with arresting visuals: from the powder blue suits hero Tetsu favors to the climactic shootout in an all white set with a single yellow spotlight on a hanging art piece, the red blood which is later released adding the room’s only other bits of color.

The film was always intended as a star-making vehicle for Tetsuya Watari, and between his stone-faced performance and his warbling of the title tune (one of several renditions the song gets during the movie), the film achieved its goal. Tamio Kawaji as Tatsuzo “The Viper” and Hideaki Nitani as Kenji, a formerly notorious assassin who became a “Tokyo drifter” before Tetsu earns the moniker, both show much more personality and forcefulness in their roles than the nominal star of the movie. Chieko Matsubara is a rather colorless girl friend, but Ryûji Kita as Tetsu’s boss underplays quite well throughout scoring beautifully late in the film when the forces against him make him turn on his only friend.

Video Quality

4.5/5

The film has been framed at its theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and is presented in 1080p using the AVC codec. The opening black and white sequence features heavy contrast and blown out whites (perhaps deliberately, perhaps unavoidable if the monochrome film it was shot on was faulty as assistant director Masami Kuzuu insists it was). Color throughout is very striking and assuredly the most memorable aspect of the transfer. Colors are pure and sharpness usually excellent (sometimes sharp enough to note brush strokes on the flats of the sets). However, there are occasional soft shots, and in high definition, rear projection becomes glaringly obvious. Flesh tones are very appealing. Black levels vary a bit but at their best are superb. The white subtitles are always easy to read. The film has been divided into 17 chapters.

Audio Quality

4/5

The PCM 1.0 (1.1 Mbps) sound mix is quite full-bodied with an outstanding combination of dialogue, music, and sound effects (the latter sound somewhat cheesy sometimes in the best Japanese tradition). In quieter moments, one will note a bit of subdued hiss, and there is some muffled crackle also to be heard late in the film during moments of quiet before the storm. Otherwise, it’s a very strong soundtrack of its era.

Special Features

3/5

All of the video material in the bonus section is presented in 1080i.

A 2011 interview with director Seijun Suzuki and assistant director Masami Kuzuu goes back and forth with comments from each man (interviewed separately). They discuss the film’s use of bright color, the black and white opening, and its budget, half of what other directors at the studio got for their films in this 12 ¼-minute vignette.

Director Seijun Suzuki spoke about his career at a retrospective of his films held in Los Angeles in 1997. This 20 ¼-minute interview touches on his ten year blacklisting from the Japanese film industry as well as his routinely smaller budgets for his films and the trouble he had with star-to-be Tetsuya Watari while making Tokyo Drifter.

The film’s theatrical trailer runs for 2 ¾ minutes.

The enclosed 14-page booklet contains cast and crew lists, some color stills from the movie, and critic Howard Hampton’s essay celebrating the film and the career of Seijun Suzuki.

The Criterion Blu-rays include a maneuvering tool called “Timeline” which can be pulled up from the menu or by pushing the red button on the remote. It shows you your progress on the disc and the title of the chapter you’re now in. Additionally, two other buttons on the remote can place or remove bookmarks if you decide to stop viewing before reaching the end of the film or want to mark specific places for later reference.

In Conclusion

3.5/5 (not an average)

Tokyo Drifter is a yakuza film with a striking difference: it doesn’t take itself too seriously and employs an arresting color motif in its visuals that make it a one-of-a-kind experience. Superb video and audio with some choice bonus features add up to a delightful package for fans of the film or director.

Matt Hough

Charlotte, NC