Tokyo Drifter

Tokyo Drifter (Tokyo Nagaremono) (1966)

Runtime: 82 minutes

Directed by: Seijun Suzuki

Starring: Tetsuya Watari, Chieko Matsubara, Hideaki Nitani, Tamio Kawaji, Eiji Go

From: Nikkatsu

If I had my own theme song, I’d sing it too!

A few years ago I experienced a few early Seijun Suzuki films yet it took until last night for me to finally pull the trigger on this. Admittedly, it being so wild or bizarre it turned me off was a distinct possibility. Not every decision Suzuki made with this I fully understood (why was the black and white opening so washed out? Why did the secretary constantly laugh at a manga she was reading?) yet as a whole I was fascinated & entertained by this piece of pop art.

Ostensibly this is about old Yakuza boss Kurata retiring from the game but he and his loyal enforcer Tetsu are constantly hounded by old cohorts to assist them in dirty dealings. What we got was some of that, but also wild editing choices (some of it dictated by budget restrictions put on Suzuki by his studio Nikkatsu; they weren’t a fan of his increasingly prevalent free jazz style), scenes with bold color backdrops, peculiar moments, a jazz club backdrop, a jazz soundtrack, non-sequitor moments, a donnybrook brawl, and overall a movie which takes the piss out of the Yakuza & the genre in general.

Nikkatsu wasn’t a fan of the end product; that partnership ended soon after and that is an ugly story best not told here and instead read on Wikipedia. It is a shame that Suzuki was even blacklisted for a bit; his films once he returned may be too weird for me but I can vouch for this and his more traditional early work—one day I should create a list of what I’ve seen so far… Suzuki’s 100th birthday would have been last week so I am glad to have finally experienced Tokyo Drifter.

One last detail I’ll reveal as to why I call this movie “jazzy”: Tetsu has a lounge singer girlfriend; she not only sings the Tokyo Drifter theme song about her own man, he more than once sings about himself!