I am continually blown away by the films of Suzuki Seijin. It is a crime against film lovers everywhere that he was blacklisted for so many years. This film isn’t as wild as some of his films, but the sets and production design are incredible and so very Suzuki. This film is incredible, and I highly recommend it.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Katsuta (Kobayashi Akira) is a devout follower of his boss Izu and the code of the Yakuza, where a Yakuza wears red and white, red in prison and white to die. The film actually starts with 3 high school girls in extreme close ups who, who seem to be vying to first sleep with a Yakuza. One is the daughter of Izu and loves Katsuta. They go to watch one man getting his tattoos in the traditional way, 2 of them leave, but one stays, as she is fascinated. The man getting the tattoo is from a rival gang, and falls for her, but one of Izu’s gang tricks her and sells her, and Katsuta can’t find her. When trying he sees a homely woman, who is a gambler, and married to the king of cheating gamblers. He keeps trying to visit the man who was getting the tattoo, but eventually takes the woman. Then when looking for the missing girl he finds her again, and decides to gamble, but she helps her husband cheat and he loses his money. Eventyally Katsuta kills 2 men, then fights his way into the rival bosses headquarters, making the man promise to work with Izu who is his sworn brother, then turns himself in to the police. The woman comes to visit him, and while she is their, they learn the man with the tattoo killed Izu over the young girl that was missing who had decided to become Izu’s mistress, and the tatooed man will of course go to Prison. And Katsuta doesn’t care because he has followed the Yakuza code, and did the honorable thing.

This film is fantastic, with changing colors and backgrounds to show the mood of the scene, and as Katsuta kills, the background goes from white to red, to show he will be going to prison. I can’t get enough of Suzuki!