Directed by:
Tomu UchidaComposer:
Isao TomitaVOD (1)
Plots(1)
In 1947, a freak typhoon sends a passenger ferry running between Hokkaido and mainland Japan plunging to the ocean depths, with hundreds of lives lost. During the chaos, three men are witnessed fleeing a burning pawnshop in the Hokkaido port town of Iwanai. The police suspect theft and arson, and when Detective Yumisaka (Junzaburo Ban) discovers the burned remains of a boat and the corpses of two men, he sets about tracking the shadowy third figure. Meanwhile, the mysterious Takichi Inukai (Rentaro Mikuni) takes shelter with a prostitute, Yae (Sachiko Hidari), a brief encounter that will come to define both of their lives. A decade later, long after the trail has gone cold, Yumisaka is called back by his successor Detective Ajimura (Ken Takakura) as two new dead bodies are found. Making its home video debut outside of Japan, this adaptation of Tsutomu Minakami's 1700-page novel is a landmark in master director Uchida's oeuvre. Its gritty monochrome photography has the immediacy of newsreel as Uchida uses the landscapes of postwar Japan to explore the massive social upheaval and unspoken legacies of the war, and create an unsettling karmic allegory of a man's struggle to escape his past sins. (Arrow Films)
(more)Cast
Rentarô Mikuni
Japan
Best movies:
Natsu no niwa - The Friends (1994)
Harakiri (1962)
Zatoichi at Large (1972)
Sachiko Hidari
Japan
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A Fugitive from the Past (1965)
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Susumu Fujita
Japan
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Japan's Longest Day (1967)
Asu o tsukuru hitobito (1946)
High and Low (1963)
Akiko Kazami
Japan
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Red Beard (1965)
A Fugitive from the Past (1965)
Repast (1951)
Ken Takakura
Japan
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The Yellow Handkerchief (1977)
Kōji Mitsui
Japan
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High and Low (1963)
Hideo Murota
Japan
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伴淳三郎
Japan
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Dodes'ka-den (1970)
加藤嘉
Japan
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Nobuo Yana
Japan
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河合絃司
Japan
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Sadako Sawamura
Japan
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Late Autumn (1960)
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Kinto Tamura
Japan
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A Fugitive from the Past (1965)
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Junnosuke Takasu
Japan
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Takashi Toyama
Best movies:
A Fugitive from the Past (1965)
Dagger of Kamui (1985)