The 1960s were a creatively explosive time for Japanese cinema. With a plethora of artists like Akira Kurosawa, Nagisa Oshima, and Shohei Imamura leading the way, Koreyoshi Kurahara tackled a number of different genre films during his most experimental era of filmmaking working his unique style of moviemaking out of the Nikkatsu studios and establishing a reputation as one of Japan’s most varied and eccentric directors. Though little known in the West, his popularity in Japan during an extremely long and prolific career never faltered. The Warped World of Koreyohi Kurahara presents five distinctive if qualitatively erratic works which make a good show of introducing this little-known filmmaker to those eager to learn more about Japanese cinema.
The Warped World of Koreyoshi Kurahara: Eclipse Series 28
Intimidation/The Warped Ones/I Hate But Love/Black Sun/Thirst for Love
Directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara
Studio: Criterion/Eclipse
Year: 1960-1967
Aspect Ratio: 2.20:1-2.45:1
Running Time: 65/75/105/95/99 minutes
Rating: NR
Audio: Dolby Digital 1.0 Japanese
Subtitles: English
MSRP: $ 69.95
Release Date: August 23, 2011
Review Date: August 17, 2011
The Films
Intimidation – 4/5
Kyosuke Takita (Nobuo Kaneko) has been most successful in his position as bank manager, and a few days before a promotion sending him to the bank’s board of directors comes through, he receives a call from Kumiko (Yoko Kozono), a blackmailer demanding three million yen to keep quiet about some illegal loan certificates he had pushed through and then covered up. Knowing that his gentle old friend and rival Nakaike (Akira Nishimura) will be the night manager, Takita plans to rob his own bank in disguise and let the blame fall on his friend. But during the robbery, his chum recognizes Takita under his mask which necessitates a very swift change of plans. That’s only the first of many turns his life will take over the course of the next few days.
Kurahara’s crime drama (scripted by Osamu Kawase from a story by Kyo Takigawa) would have made a superb entry in the old Alfred Hitchcock Hour television series so filled is it with unexpected twists and turns that take the main character and the viewer by complete surprise. It’s a superb capsulated caper film, and the sense of tension and tentative hopefulness rings true throughout. Kurahara moves things along very nicely and uses a telling series of close-ups that make for interesting visual motifs: eyes, keyholes, an ear, a gun, all mixed seamlessly into the pattern of the storytelling. And his two main actors are excellent. Nobuo Kaneko plays the bank manager with a mixture of composure, confidence, and, at his nadir, fear of losing it all. Even more magnificent is Akira Nishimura whose timidity and soft-spoken quality masks a person filled with veiled jealousy and anger.
The Warped Ones – 2/5
Juvenile delinquent Akira (Tamio Kawachi) gives new meaning to the term sociopath. He steals cars and motorcycles, lifts purses, shoplifts, and even kidnaps and rapes an innocent young girl Yuki (Yuko Chishiro) whose fiancé Kashiwagi (Hiroyuki Nagato) had been instrumental in sending him to juvenile detention. Yuki can’t get the shame and disgrace of the rape out of her head, and Akira derives considerable pleasure in meeting up with her at every conceivable location to remind her constantly of her shame.
Kurahara’s The Warped Ones is a seventy-five minute fever dream of decadence and juvenilia gone berserk. He films the escapades of the two hoodlums and their constantly chortling hooker girl friend Fumiko (Noriko Matsumoto) with a jumping camera style (almost cinema vérité in manner) that mimics the hyperkinetic behavior of the title characters. But Akira’s out-of-control depravity becomes quickly tiresome (there doesn’t seem to be an adult or a peer who can slap some sense of reality into him, and all of his crimes go unpunished), and Tamio Kawachi offers perhaps the most overacted, preposterous performance in the history of cinema as the troubled (but not in his mind) youth. The number of coincidences and the constant whiny reappearances of Yuko Chishiro’s Yuki become eye-rolling after a time, and one finally gives up on the movie for its excesses and its lack of even a slightly restrained presentation.
I Hate But Love – 3/5
Radio and television star Daisaku Kita (Yujiro Ishihara) is the most beloved media personality in Japan, but his über-hectic schedule arranged by his manager/girl friend Noriko Sakakta (Ruriko Asaoka) leaves him barely enough time to sleep. To keep his life as uncomplicated as possible, Daisaku and Noriko have agreed to remain platonic lovers, and it’s been that way for more than two years. On his television talk show, a young woman implores someone in Japan to come to her rescue, to deliver a ramshackle jeep to her pen pal lover/doctor in a remote village over nine hundred miles away from Tokyo in the name of “true love.” Daisaku surprises everyone by volunteering for the assignment despite having dozens of personal appearance commitments which might lead to a breach of contract suit if he undertakes the mission. Undaunted, he sets out on the long journey with Noriko in hot pursuit since his failure to make his scheduled appearances might not only end his career but hers as well.
Beginning as a romantic comedy, the film segues rather weirdly into a shrill melodrama that borders on the laughable. Though Noriko thinks of everything she can to spin Daisaku’s stunt positively for the media, she finally reaches her breaking point where she comes close to suicide! (It never seems to occur to Daisaku’s TV and radio bosses that his doing such a selfless deed might bring them scads of positive publicity and thus make him even more popular and in demand. Crowds who cheer him along the way seem to attest to this.) Kurahara goes a little overboard with the overhead shots utilizing them at every possible venue, but as the film begins to resemble nothing so much as The Wages of Fear by the end, he must have felt he needed to match the overblown story with extremely flashy directorial touches. We have to take it on faith that Yujiro Ishihara is playing a charismatic media personality because it’s not really evident on the screen. Ruriko Asaoka gives a much lighter and more appealing performance early on though the outrageous purple emotions she indulges in during the film’s latter third tend to negate much of her earlier appeal. Truly, with the crux of the piece involving merely a lengthy car trip where the boredom of the drive should have been its most negative feature, the director and writer Nonuo Yamada have made very much ado about nothing.
Black Sun – 2.5/5
Four years after plaguing Tokyo with his own special brand of crazy in The Warped Ones, Akira (Tamio Kawachi) is still doing things his own way: jacking cars, shoplifting whatever he wants, living in an abandoned church tower despite being warned it’s due to be torn down. Into his life one night bounds Gill (Chico Roland), a black American GI on the run from the police and army officers for killing another soldier with a machine gun. The American jazz-loving Akira (who calls himself “Mei” in this movie) welcomes the black man into his “home” since in his mind Gill’s skin color translates into the ability to sing, play, and appreciate jazz music. But Gill has a bullet lodged in his leg, and in his pain and confusion over Mei’s foreign tongue, he mistreats Mei’s jazz record collection and thus alienates a would-be friend who becomes less and less eager to help this ungrateful and bullying man.
Kurahara drags out the numerous confrontations between the warring men almost past endurance, and until the pair finally leave that dilapidated tower (which does indeed get pulled down), the fussing back and forth between them gets tedious. There’s some really heavy-handed symbolism when Mei (who just happens to have black and white paint in his hovel) paints the black man white and himself black to escape through the cordons of military and domestic police who seemingly have nothing else to do but look for this one injured man. The leg injury also seems to have been forgotten in a lengthy sequence set in Mei’s jazz club hangout where Gill dances for the patrons (with seemingly no limp or wincing pain on his face) before the pair is thrown out. Though his performance isn’t nearly as indulgent and extreme as it was in The Warped Ones, Tamio Kawachi continues to play to the rafters with his facial expressions and an active tongue. Chico Roland tries to do something with his confused and injured soldier, but the part is underwritten, and he seems to fall back on the same few mannerisms throughout. Kurahara was obviously influenced by The Defiant Ones in fashioning the story and some of the shots for the movie, down to the hands reaching for one another featured prominently in Kramer’s opus. It, of course, doesn’t have a fraction of the humanity or intricate interaction contained in that memorable earlier picture.
Thirst for Love – 3.5/5
After the death of her husband, Etsuko (Ruriko Asaoka) becomes the mistress of her widowed father-in-law (Nobuo Nakamura), a rather cold and demanding man who treats his own rather lazy and unambitious children with a fair amount of disdain. Etsuko develops a fixation on the family gardener Saburo (Tetsuo Ishidate), but she realizes their different social stations make any future with him impossible. Her heart sinks, however, when she learns that Saburo has gotten house worker Miyo (Chitose Kurenai) pregnant. She knows she can’t have him, but she doesn’t relish the idea of her beloved tied to another woman under her own roof.
The film is filled with rich ideas and even if the execution is somewhat slapdash, one can’t help but wonder where the story is going to go. The director had a hand in the screenplay (along with Shigeo Fujita) based on a novel, but the situation involving love between differing classes is an ancient one existing in almost every civilized society. Kurahara keeps that camera moving with a surprising mix of overhead shots, tracking shots, zooms, slow motion, and circular camerawork, all of which keeps the viewer off balance throughout. Etsuko’s dream sequences about achieving sexual fulfillment are surreal in tone, but the climactic passages bring things into a harsher, grimmer perspective. Ruriko Asaoka gives a brave performance of alternating repressed and expressive sensuality. Tetsuo Ishidate makes an understandingly tempting suitor for her. Nobuo Nakamura admirably doesn’t overplay the dictatorial aspects of his head of household role. As the spoiled, shiftless son who admits he’s grown accustomed to wiling away his days doing nothing, Akira Yamauchi is very good indeed and has a splendid drunk scene late in the film that’s a great spotlight moment for him.
Video Quality
Intimidation – 3.5/5
The film is framed at 2.20:1 and is anamorphically enhanced for widescreen televisions. The standard definition image is sharp and clear, and the grayscale is pleasing even if blacks never reach the depths that would have given the picture more pop. Contrast is suitably maintained throughout. There are a few minor scratches but nothing too serious that gives away the age of the film. The white subtitles are very easy to read. The film has been divided into 9 chapters.
The Warped Ones – 3/5
The film is framed at 2.35:1 and is anamorphically enhanced for widescreen televisions. Though the print used for the transfer doesn’t contain the slight scratches found in the previous movie’s transfer, the look of the film is softer and less distinct. Grayscale isn’t quite as captivating as in the previous movie, and the deliberately blown out whites and mediocre blacks mix artiness with artlessness. The white subtitles are quite legible, and the movie has been divided into 13 chapters.
I Hate But Love – 2.5/5
The film is presented with an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and is anamorphically enhanced even though the entire image is slightly windowboxed. Color saturation levels vary throughout the transfer with much of it seeming slightly faded but some later scenes exhibiting richer and more robust color. Flesh tones are realistic throughout, but sharpness is only average. Contrast appears the slightest bit milky through much of the movie. Blacks are rather weak, and there is a fair amount of aliasing to be seen during the movie. Subtitles are in white and are easy to read. The film has been divided into 15 chapters.
Black Sun – 2.5/5
The film has been framed at 2.25:1 and is anamorphically enhanced for widescreen televisions. The camera lens was unfortunately infected with the anamorphic mumps which cause prominent problems with the extreme left and right of the frame. When the camera starts to spin in certain shots, the effect is quite dizzying. Grayscale is rather average in the transfer (blacks are fairly milky), and sharpness is most times only routine. There is a scratch or two but nothing particularly noteworthy in regard to age-related artifacts otherwise. The white subtitles are easy to read, and the movie has been divided into 13 chapters.
Thirst for Love – 4/5
The film is framed at 2.45:1 and the transfer is anamorphically enhanced. This is by far the best looking film in this collection with all of the real-world scenes sharp as a tack and filled with detail. Black levels aren’t optimum, but otherwise the grayscale and nicely dialed-in contrast gives forth a beautiful image. The dream sequences are filmed in a deliberately dewy soft-focus that contrasts expertly with the clarity of the real world situations. The white subtitles show up very well, and the film has been divided into 14 chapters.
Audio Quality
Intimidation, The Warped Ones, Black Sun – 3.5/5
All of the discs come with Dolby Digital 1.0 tracks. Dialogue and Foley effects were post dubbed on these films and have that dry, uninvolving sound that post synching often has in movies of this era. Hiss and other audio artifacts are not a series problem with these mixes (more notable in Black Sun than the others) though the lack of high or low ends in the sound design does betray the audio reproduction of the era when the films were made. The heavy jazz-influenced scores of The Warped Ones and Black Sun sound about as good as it’s possible to sound in these mono mixes.
I Hate But Love – 3/5
There seems to be some direct recording here in certain scenes, but most of it is post synched and sounds rather flat and lifeless. The zippy jazz score by Toshiro Mayuzumi sounds acceptable but, of course, is a bit less effective in this dated mono mix. There is some slight hiss to be heard off and on during the film.
Thirst for Love – 3.5/5
There is some hum to be heard early on, and the soft hiss is fairly persistent throughout the running time. However, the post synched dialogue and sound effects, while a trifle canned and dry, still land with more resonance than in the other mixes.
Special Features
1/5
The Eclipse line of releases don’t contain bonus features, but each slimline case comes with its own set of well researched liner notes by Asian film scholar and critic Chuck Stephens.
In Conclusion
3/5 (not an average)
The Warped World of Koreyoshi Kurahara definitely does skew off center for at least three of the five films in this set. Those interested in a very popular Japanese filmmaker who doesn’t have much of a reputation in this country might be obliged to check out this set.
Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC
