#39 is a slightly earlier film than our previous installment from Seijun Suzuki - another Nikkatsu film turned out in the sausage mill of 1960's Japanese B-movie cinema.
As Usual, Seijun gives it a twist of the surreal and gives it back to us - Another story of a hard-boiled Yakuza - (aren't they all, though?) trying to go straight and being brought back in
The sets are some of the most interesting pieces in this film - many of them, such as the club, is more like an open sound stage or broadway stage with a few props in it - the lighting changes from time to time in the rooms - as if each scene gets it's own color
What I was amused to find from the special features was that they really skimped on the budget for this one so Seijun had to make do - it's easy to be creative when poor they said - LOL - but creative they were - this line from Wikipedia really says it all..
"Nikkatsu bosses had been warning Suzuki to tone down his bizarre visual style for years and drastically reduced Tokyo Drifter's budget in hopes of getting results. This had the opposite effect in that Suzuki and art director Takeo Kimura pushed themselves to new heights of surrealism and absurdity"
The movie was based around a pop song and this was the lead actor's 3rd film - (he was who the studio had queued up for the next film and wanted it to be a star vehicle) - He's basically, well, to me, unmemorable - but the sets and melody of the song are with me a couple days later -
there's some more excellent Seijun coming up so I look forward to it - this was a fun little side romp...
and much more interesting than the next film in the Criterion Collection 😑
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