Tokyo Drifter - The man from Tokyo

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Movie
German title Tokyo Drifter - The man from Tokyo
Alternatively : Settlement in Tokyo
Original title 東京 流 れ 者
Country of production Japan
original language Japanese
Publishing year 1966
length 83 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Seijun Suzuki
script Kōhan Kawauchi
production Tetsuro Nakagawa
music Hajime Kaburagi
camera Shigeyoshi Mine
cut Shin'ya Inoue
occupation

Tokyo Drifter - The Man from Tokyo ( Japanese 東京 流 れ 者 , Tōkyō nagaremono , German "Tokyo vagabond") is a Japanese gangster or Yakuza film by the Nikkatsu by director Seijun Suzuki from 1966. The film is about a young gangster who lives out his thirst for freedom out of deep loyalty to his father's mentor and who restlessly becomes the eponymous “vagabond of Tokyo” without ever finding peace and quiet or being able to leave his former life as a criminal behind.

The film was first released in Japan on April 10, 1966. The German screen premiere took place on October 11, 1990 in the original language with German subtitles. On October 7, 1995, the gangster strip was broadcast for the first time in a dubbed version on German television under the title Billing in Tokyo .

action

Tokyo , Japan. The aging yakuza boss Kurata dissolves his criminal syndicate to strive for a peaceful, middle-class existence as an honorable businessman. His right hand, the young subordinate Tetsu, swears with a heavy heart of all violence in order to dutifully accompany his foster father on the path of virtue following his pronounced code of honor . With borrowed money from a businessman friend, he buys a multi-storey property and nightclub.

Kurata's sudden change in life inevitably leads to the desires of rival gangster families. Yakuza boss Otsuka decides to fill the power vacuum as quickly as possible. At the same time, the unscrupulous crook wants to ruin his former adversary, as he still has a score to go with both Kurata and his companion Tetsu, who once refused to follow him.

When Kurata one day fails to pay eight million yen outstanding debt, Tetsu selflessly vouches for his life. Those bonds come into the possession of the unscrupulous Otsuka through a predatory intrigue, who violates the highest values ​​of the organization with his offense. A little later, Otsuka tries to blackmail himself into the new owner, but Tetsu saves his master - Kurata accidentally killed a young woman while trying to defend himself - from difficulties in dire need. In this situation, Otsuka realizes that he has his rival Kurata in his hands. The only thing left to do is to eliminate the troublemaker Tetsu, so that it is easier to cheat the isolated, defenseless Kurata.

Tetsu takes on Kurata's guilt. In order to avert harm to his master, the loyal Tetsu leaves Tokyo out of honor and a sense of duty and becomes a vagabond "Tokyo Drifter" who endures his wanderings singing. His life is still threatened by Otsuka's henchmen, above all by “Viper” Tatsu, who are constantly chasing him. On the way, Tetsu meets Kenji Aizawa, a disaffected dropout from the Otsuka group who becomes something of a friend.

Meanwhile, Kurata succumbs to a reprehensible agreement made by his adversary. Tetsu is portrayed as the cause of all evil that needs to be removed. Although Tetsu continues to be loyal to his master, his foster father does not return the trust. This now openly demands his death in order not to endanger his own assets or his own safety. At the end of the film, Tetsu takes revenge on Otsuka and his followers, whom he kills in a wild shootout almost simultaneously. His treacherous mentor realizes his miserable failure and, wounded, chooses suicide. In the last scene of the film, Tetsu breaks away from his girlfriend, the singer Chiharu, in order to continue his journey alone to an unknown destination.

background

Seijun Suzuki had been part of the Nikkatsu production studio for years, for which he delivered assembly line films for years despite spartan working conditions and thus rose from assistant director to director. According to his own statement, it was customary to send scripts to the responsible director about ten days before the start of shooting, so that there was not enough time for changes and the entire production had to be rolled down within a few days under enormous time pressure. Furthermore, the studio bosses demanded that the main actor Tetsuya Watari himself sing the theme song, which then had to be repeated as often as possible in the film. Suzuki turned this demand into a singing and whistling yakuza on the move.

The producers were not entirely satisfied with the film and asked the experimental and creative director to re-shoot an additional scene that Suzuki shot with Tetsuya Watari and Hideaki Nitani. Those responsible did not like the artistically inspired result, so that it was not used in the finished film. The increasing artificiality of Suzuki led to the first differences of opinion, which escalated a year later with the film Branded to Kill and prompted Nikkatsu to end the collaboration with her in-house director after 40 joint film productions. Years of litigation followed with the disgraced director.

Reviews

“A gangster ballad about killing and loneliness, told in brightly colored colors that condense into a garish symbolism. She plays quite skillfully with her own cinematic means and is full of references to the gangster film - especially the 'existentialist' French of the 60s. "( Lexicon of international film )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. http://german.imdb.com/title/tt0061101/releaseinfo
  2. ↑ a b c cf. Tokyo Drifter - The man from Tokyo in the lexicon of international filmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used
  3. ↑ a b c d cf. Koshi Ueno in an interview with Seijun Suzuki; August 8, 2001, Tokyo Drifter DVD by Rapid Eye Movies dated April 21, 2006