CRUEL GUN STORY

I recorded CRUEL GUN STORY (1964) off of TCM a couple of months ago and saved it, waiting for the chance to watch it with my buddy Kelly Greene. We got that chance yesterday and boy, was it worth the wait.

CRUEL GUN STORY is the second Japanese neo-noir film I've watched recently, following the brilliant A COLT IS MY PASSPORT (1967). Like COLT, CRUEL was produced by Nikkatsu Studios, which was to Japanese crime films what Toho Studios was to Godzilla movies. And both film star Joe Shishido as driven, tough-as-nails criminals.

CRUEL GUN STORY is, on the surface, a standard heist film. Togawa (Shishido), is sprung from prison by crime boss Matsumoto (Hiroshi Nihonyanagi) to engineer a daring caper: steal 120 million in yen from an armored car The money is from the racetrack where the Japan Derby is held.

Togawa wants his share of the money to finance an operation for his crippled sister, Rie (Chieko Matsubara). The doctors tell him she'll never walk again even with the surgery, but Togawa is determined to do everything he can to take care of the young woman. Togawa blames himself for her condition. Rie was hit by a truck and Togawa, fueled with rage and frustration, sought out the truck driver and crippled him in revenge.

Togawa assembles a team including his friend Shirai (Yuji Odaka), the only man he really trusts. The other two men, a boxer and a gambler/junkie, are untrustworthy but necessary to pull off the heist. A minute-by-minute plan is conceived and put into motion.

You can see where this is going, right?

After things go wrong, Togawa and his men are on the run with Matsumoto and his gang on their trail and out for blood. There are some spectacularly staged shoot outs and the body count keeps going up and up and up. CRUEL GUN STORY is one brutal, nihilistic film with only one character left alive at the end of the film. And it's not one of the gangsters.

Director Takumi Furukawa keeps the action moving at a brisk pace. There's a jazzy score that lends an urgency to the narrative, the location work is first rate and all of the main characters are well drawn, especially Togawa, a brutal man who lives (and dies) by his own code of honor.

CRUEL GUN STORY is a dazzling piece of 1960s Japanese crime cinema. It makes a great double bill with A COLT IS MY PASSPORT.

Highest recommendation.