- ある脅迫 (Intimidation), 9/6/22 (Tues)
Kurahara Koreyoshi’s accomplished 1960 flick (the Japanese title is “A Certain Blackmail”) is sometimes referred to as the first Japanese noir, and while I doubt that’s true, it does seem to be the first to have made a real impression. Kurahara is best known for the Takakura Ken vehicle Antartica (南極物語), which reigned for years as Japan’s highest-grossing domestic film (and remains second for non-anime works). This film, worlds away from that epic, is a tightly wound suspense piece that manages to lay out a carefully plotted story and nicely delineated characters in just over an hour. Talk about efficiency. It’s based on a story by Takigawa Kyo, who gave his villain the similar name Takita Kyosuke.
sekenbanashi 