Hishakaku and Kiratsune: A Tale of Two Yakuza

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Hishakaku and Kiratsune: A Tale of Two Yakuza (1968)

Name: Hishakaku and Kiratsune: A Tale of Two Yakuza
Genre: Crime
Released: 1968
Duration: 109 min

Directed by Tomu Uchida

Crime · 1h 49m

With his penultimate film, Uchida revisited one of his popular prewar titles, 1936’s Theatre of Life, an adaptation of Shiro Ozaki’s eponymous novel. Three-time Seijun Suzuki collaborator Goro Tanada wrote a gangsterized adaptation of Ozaki’s story for Uchida at a time when the yakuza had eclipsed the samurai genre as Toei's main cash crop. Protagonist Hishakaku murders a man in a quarrel over a barmaid and goes to jail. In his temporary absence, his girlfriend Otoyo, a former geisha, falls for Hishakaku’s brother, inciting a dangerous love triangle that, in typical yakuza fashion, ends tragically.