is a 1966 ''yakuza'' film directed by

Seijun Suzuki , born (24 May 1923 – 13 February 2017), was a Japanese filmmaker, actor, and screenwriter. His films are known for their jarring visual style, irreverent humour, nihilistic cool and entertainment-over-logic sensibility. He made 40 predo ...

. The story follows

Tetsuya Watari born (December 28, 1941 – August 10, 2020) was a Japanese film, stage, and television actor. Life He graduated from Aoyama Gakuin University. Watari belonged to the karate club at university. He made his screen debut in 1964, in Isamu Kosu ...

as the reformed yakuza

hitman Contract killing is a form of murder or assassination in which one party hires another party to kill a targeted person or persons. It involves an illegal agreement which includes some form of payment, monetary or otherwise. Either party may b ...

"Phoenix" Tetsu who is forced to roam Japan avoiding execution by rival gangs.

Plot

An old ''

yakuza , also known as , are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media, by request of the police, call them , while the ''yakuza'' call themselves . The English equivalent for the ter ...

'' boss named Kurata decides to retire from his criminal activities and disbands his gang. His fiercely loyal enforcer, Tetsuya "Phoenix Tetsu" Hondo, finds himself unable to enjoy a life outside of

organized crime Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally th ...

. He is hounded by a rival gang after turning down a recruitment offer by its boss, Otsuka.Berra (2010), 282. Otsuka sees Kurata's retirement as an opportunity to seize his territory via a real estate scam, seeing Tetsu as a threat to his plans. Kurata is eventually forced to convince Tetsu to become a

drifter A drifter is a vagrant who moves from place to place without a fixed home or employment. Drifter(s) or The Drifter(s) may also refer to: Films and television Films * ''The Drifter'' (1917 film), an American film directed by Fred Kelsey * ''Th ...

. Otsuka sends his hitman "Viper" Tatsuzo to kill Tetsu, who evades him and Otsuka's hit squad a number of times with help from a former Otsuka gang member named Kenji. Tetsu later reaches the establishment of Kurata's ally Umetani, who reveals that Kurata joined forces with Otsuka and placed a bounty on Tetsu's head. A betrayed Tetsu returns to

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...

for a final confrontation with Otsuka, killing everyone but his former girlfriend Chiharu, and Kurata takes his own life to redeem himself. Tetsu rejects Chiharu's plea for her to accompany him on his travels, explaining that he has dedicated himself to the wanderer lifestyle and could not abandon it for another's company.

Cast

as Tetsuya "Phoenix Tetsu" Hondo *

Chieko Matsubara is a Japanese actress from Nagoya, Spotted at a beauty contest sponsored by the Nikkatsu studio, Matsubara made her debut in 1961 at age 16 in ''Yoru no chōsensha''. Matsubara won popularity and became one of the representative actresses of th ...

as Chiharu *

Hideaki Nitani was a Japanese actor. Career Born in Kyoto Prefecture, Nitani attended Doshisha University but quit before graduating. He first worked as an announcer at Nagasaki Broadcasting Company, but in 1956 made his debut as an actor at Nikkatsu. Gaining ...

as Kenji Aizawa *

Tamio Kawaji was a Japanese actor. Career Kawachi was a student at Kanto Gakuin University when Yujiro Ishihara, one of his neighbors in Zushi, Kanagawa, invited him to join the Nikkatsu studio. He made his debut in '' A Slope in the Sun'' (1958) playing ...

as Tatsuzo The Viper * Tsuyoshi Yoshida as Keiichi *

Ryūji Kita was a Japanese actor. He appeared in more than 280 films from 1937 to 1972. Career Kita started out in the film industry in the scenario department at the Shochiku studios, but moved to Nikkatsu in 1937 and made his acting debut in Tomu Uchida ...

as Kurata *

Hideaki Esumi Hideaki (ひであき) is a masculine Japanese given name. Possible writings Hideaki can be written using different kanji characters and can mean: *秀秋, "excellent", "autumn" *英秋, "outstanding", "autumn" *秀明, "excellent", "bright" ...

as Otsuka *

Eiji Go Eiji is a common masculine Japanese given name. Possible writings Eiji can be written using different kanji characters and can mean: *, "prosperity, peace" *, "great, peace" *, "great, second" *, "eternity, next" The name can also be written in ...

as Tanaka

Production

Nikkatsu is a Japanese entertainment company known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio, founded in 1912 during the silent film era. The name ''Nikkatsu'' amalgamates the words Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally ...

bosses had been warning Suzuki to tone down his bizarre visual style for years and drastically reduced ''Tokyo Drifters budget in hopes of getting results. This had the opposite effect in that Suzuki and

art director Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and unify the vis ...

Takeo Kimura pushed themselves to new heights of

surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

and absurdity. The studio's next move was to impose the further restriction of filming in black and white on his next two films, which again Suzuki met with even greater bizarreness culminating in his dismissal for "incomprehensibility". Because of budget limitations, Suzuki had to cut connecting shots out of many fights, leading to a need for more creative camera work. Various shots of

were used to establish the setting as the then-contemporary post-1964 Japan. Suzuki drew inspiration from a wide variety of sources in making ''Tokyo Drifter'', including the

musical film Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, but in some cases, they serve merely as brea ...

s of the

1950s The 1950s (pronounced nineteen-fifties; commonly abbreviated as the "Fifties" or the " '50s") (among other variants) was a decade that began on January 1, 1950, and ended on December 31, 1959. Throughout the decade, the world continued its re ...

, pop art, absurdist comedy, and

surrealist film Surrealist cinema is a modernist approach to film theory, criticism, and production with origins in Paris in the 1920s. The movement used shocking, irrational, or absurd imagery and Freudian dream symbolism to challenge the traditional function of ...

Themes

Suzuki displays common themes found in Yakuza films, particularly the theme of loyalty, in order to parody the message and presentation of traditional

Yakuza film is a popular film genre in Japanese cinema which focuses on the lives and dealings of ''yakuza'', Japanese organized crime syndicates. In the silent film era, depictions of ''bakuto'' (precursors to modern yakuza) as sympathetic Robin Ho ...

s. He uses his depictions of Yakuza relationships to show the inherent weakness of the archetype, particularly the possible abuses of power that can arise from unquestioning allegiance.Standish (2005), 300. Further, the common theme of

corporate corruption In criminology, corporate crime refers to crimes committed either by a corporation (i.e., a business entity having a separate legal personality from the natural persons that manage its activities), or by individuals acting on behalf of a corpo ...

is also parodied through exaggeration when the main character becomes an expendable retainer.Standish (2005), 301. The conventions in the film further parody the conformity of theme and structure apparent in all

Japanese film The has a history that spans more than 100 years. Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world; as of 2021, it was the fourth largest by number of feature films produced. In 2011 Japan produced 411 feature films that ea ...

, but especially in Yakuza films of the time, particularly its excesses.Bleiler (2004), 632.

Style

The mise en scène of ''Tokyo Drifter'' is highly stylized.Standish (2005), 304. Film reviewer Nikolaos Vryzidis claims that the film crosses over into a number of different genres, but most resembles the

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretica ...

films occurring in the 1960s.Vryzidis (2010), 282. At times, the film draws a good deal of inspiration from

westerns The Western is a genre set in the American frontier and commonly associated with folk tales of the Western United States, particularly the Southwestern United States, as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada. It is commonly referred ...

. The whistling of the main character Tetsu is reminiscent of cowboy heroes. Near the middle of the film, a large bar fight erupts; this scene is meant to directly parody western films, everyone in the saloon joins in the brawl against

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

sailors, and comical violence is used where no one is permanently injured, despite the large-scale violence of the scene. The majority of the film takes place in

, but portrays the city in a highly stylized manner.Barber (2005), 124. The opening sequence consists of a mash of images from metropolitan Tokyo, meant to condense the feeling of the city into one sequence.Barber (2005), 125. The film opens in stylized

black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

, which becomes vibrant color in all subsequent scenes.Vryzidis (2010), 283. This served to represent Tokyo post-

1964 Summer Olympics The , officially the and commonly known as Tokyo 1964 ( ja, 東京1964), were an international multi-sport event held from 10 to 24 October 1964 in Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo had been awarded the organization of the 1940 Summer Olympics, but this h ...

Reception

Vryzidis claims that Suzuki's later films, once the studio gave him more freedom, never reached the same level of artistic quality as ''Tokyo Drifter'', where the studio attempted to impose a large amount of control over the project. Tetsu, the main character of the film, has also been well received. One reviewer commented that he always looks "cool", even when he is not the toughest guy in the room. Stephen Barber called the visualization in ''Tokyo Drifter'' "bizarre and individual". Douglass Pratt praised the film for its quirkiness and character.Pratt (2005), 1246. He further stated that the plot of the film does not matter so much as "the gorgeous Pop Art sets, the bizarre musical sequences, the confusing but ballistic action scenes and the film's gunbutt attitude."

Legacy

The film is considered ahead of its time, as it abandoned the themes of the

Ninkyo eiga is a popular film genre in Japanese cinema which focuses on the lives and dealings of ''yakuza'', Japanese organized crime syndicates. In the silent film era, depictions of ''bakuto'' (precursors to modern yakuza) as sympathetic Robin Hood-l ...

films popular at the time, and combines with themes from the later Jitsuroku eiga Yakuza films, which disavowed the romantic and nostalgic views of the Yakuza in favor of social criticism.

Home video

The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scho ...

released the film outside Japan in DVD format in 1999. Criterion also released a Blu-ray version in 2013.

Soundtrack

The film has a recurrent appearance of Tetsu's girlfriend as a lounge singer repeating several times her signature song throughout the film.

Tokyo Drifter 2: The Sea is Bright Red as the Color of Love

is a 1966 Japanese

crime film Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combin ...

and sequel to Tokyo Drifter. Tetsuya completed his prison term in Tokyo. He goes to Kochi to meet his big brother Hide.

Cast

as Fushicho no Tetsu (Tetsuya Hondō) * Kazuko Tachibana as Setsuko Toda *

as Sally Kayama * Teruo Yoshida as Kenji Gōda * Keisuke Noro as Matsu *

Ryōtarō Sugi (born 14 August 1944, Kobe) is a Japanese singer and actor. He is the father of actor Jundai Yamada. He appeared in ''Sukima Kaze'', which sold over a million copies. His acting credits include 18 films. On television, he specialized in '' jida ...

as Kōji Sugi *

Mari Shiraki is a Japanese actress. She joined the Nikkatsu studio and appeared in about 100 films at Nikkatsu. Shiraki is well known for her role of Ritsu Nakamura on the ''jidaigeki'' television series '' Hissatsu''. Selected filmography Film * The Naked ...

as Hiromi * Goro Tarumi as Ace no Hide (Shinji Toda) *

Shōbun Inoue was a Japanese actor. Inoue started his acting career at the Haiyuza Theatre Company. Later, he signed his contract with Nikkatsu film company. Filmography Films * ''Throne of Blood'' (1957) as Tsuzuki's messenger * ''Sun in the Last Days of t ...

as Onijima *

Nobuo Kaneko was a Japanese actor. His wife was actress Yatsuko Tanami. He appeared in more than 200 films between 1950 and 1993. Career Kaneko was a versatile character actor, playing roles ranging from comedic buffoons to hardened yakuza bosses. He is es ...

as Segawa

Footnotes

References

* * * * * * * *

External links

* . * *
''Tokyo Drifter: Catch My Drift''
an essay by Howard Hampton at the

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cine ...

''Tokyo Drifter''
at the

Japanese Movie Database The , more commonly known as simply JMDb, is an online database of information about Japanese movies, actors, and production crew personnel. It is similar to the Internet Movie Database but lists only those films initially released in Japan. Y. ...

. {{Seijun Suzuki 1966 films Japanese crime thriller films 1960s crime thriller films Films directed by Seijun Suzuki 1960s Japanese-language films Nikkatsu films Yakuza films Films set in Japan Films shot in Japan Films shot in Tokyo 1960s Japanese films