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6 Degrees Entertainment

'Seijun Suzuki: The Early Years. Vol. 2'
(Nagato Hiroyuki, Ashida Shunsuke, et al / 4-Disc Blu ray+DVD / NR / 2018 / Arrow Films UK)

Overview: Available for home-viewing for the very first time ever outside of Japan, Seijun Suzuki: The Early Years. Vol. 2. Border Crossings: The Crime and Action Movies is a collection of bleak crime thrillers, brash mob dramas and exuberant action movies, made across the first five years of Seijun Suzuki’s career.

Blu-ray Verdict: Containing 'Eight Hours of Terror' (1957), 'The Sleeping Beast Within' (1960), 'Smashing the 0-Line' (1960), 'Tokyo Knights' (1961), and 'The Man with a Shotgun' (1961), we begin in terrific style with 'Eight Hours of Terror' (1957).

The plot concerns a passenger train which is stalled when a typhoon wrecks the tracks. The commuters are offloaded onto a shuttle bus, which is then taken over by a pair of sadistic gangsters.

The characters are informed early about bank robbers on the loose and their bus ride is marked by fear of a potential encounter. It quickly becomes clear that the more "respectable" passengers are the most cowardly and the least reliable in a crisis.

The first major setback occurs when the single mother and her baby go missing and are discovered unconscious in the river over which they've just crossed by bridge after taking a break on the road. The prisoner turns out to have been an army doctor and is recruited to try to save the baby's life as the ride continues.

The scenes in the bus are mostly shot in a studio set with moving backgrounds supplied by rear screen projection. After the robbers enter the story, several major scenes are shot on location in a mountainous region on narrow, treacherous roads.

Significant portions of the action move off the road for what must have been a difficult shoot, enhancing the plausibility of the proceedings. The actors are all excellent and make their characters quite believable.

Next up is the terrific 'The Sleeping Beast Within' (1960), where a businessman returns from an extended trip, but something seems off. Criminal operations and religious cults come into play, while the man's daughter and her journalist boyfriend race to find the truth.

While far from the bombastic action films many know Seijun Suzuki for, 'The Sleeping Beast Within' plays much like a brooding detective story, with the investigative reporter being the driving force behind discovering the truth behind the father/businessman's disappearance.

Seijun Suzuki's direction is always unique, and this film is no exception, with my favorite stylistic decision in this film being the use of flashback. There are two major flashback sequences in 'The Sleeping Beast Within', each of which are being told by a character onscreen.

While many flashbacks simply count on a slow transitional fade to inform the viewer, Suzuki opts instead to overlay the character telling the story with the flashback sequence itself, superimposing them over the action which they are describing, a unique decision which I'd argue amplifies the flashback due to capturing both the current, the person telling the story in real-time, and the events of the past.

Featuring a tragic conclusion and a story that reminds the audience that all men are capable of evil, Seijun Suzuki's 'The Sleeping Beast Within' isn't exactly an uplifting story, but the emotional core centered around the relationship between father and daughter makes the film worth seeing alone.

'Smashing the 0-Line' (1960) is next and it brings us the story of two reporters of divergent morals investigating a drug ring, whilst delving deeper into the underworld in the process.

Fifty years before 'Nightcrawler' (and about a decade after Billy Wilder's 'Ace in the Hole'), Seijun Suzuki offered his own take on amoral crime reporters who will do just about anything to get a story, even if it means ratting out friends and lovers, manufacturing events from scratch.

Hiroyuki Nagato plays Katari, a cold-blooded careerist newshound who's constantly stealing headlines from the slightly more principled Yuji Odaka, a fellow reporter aghast at the levels to which his rival scooper will sink.

Katari combs the docks looking for drug deals, often getting there well before the cops (and leaving beforehand, too). He soon stumbles onto a drug smuggling ring that doubles in human trafficking. When he gets in too deep, Odaka has to put his qualms about Katiri's ethics aside to help him get out alive.

This is an early Seijun effort in the more straightforward potboiler mode. It's an enjoyable yarn with some snazzy, fluid handheld camerawork. Don't expect a lot of experimentation or innovation this early in his career, but it's definitely an intriguing, building watch for a cold, wet night spent indoors, of that you have my word.

In 'Tokyo Knights' (1961), a college student takes over the family business in the field of organised crime. In truth, this film was made more to showcase Suzuki rebelling against the studio! In a defiant move, he took this story of a high school student who inherits his gangster father's business, and turned it into a comedy.

As a result, actor Koji Wada was strongly chastised for the role and critics at the time stated that he didn't have the ability to pull off parody. However, Suzuki made it up to him with 'Bloody Channel', that's for damn sure.

Lastly we get 'The Man with a Shotgun' (1961), where Ryoji, a wanderer, arrives in a remote mountain town, carrying a shotgun and claiming to be a hunter. However, he quickly becomes embroiled in a web of trouble surrounding the town's mill.

Directed by Suzuki in the vein of the Nikkatsu Studio's "borderless action cinema", Hideaki Nitani stars as a singing cowboy-cum-trucker who seeks revenge after his girlfriend is raped and murdered. These are all brand new High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation's enhanced for 16x9 TVs and come with the Special Features of:

•Limited Edition Dual Format Collection [1500 copies]
•High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations
•Newly translated optional English Subtitles
•Audio commentary by critic and author Jasper Sharp on Smashing the 0-Line
•Tony Rayns on the Crime and Action Movies the critic and historian discusses the background to the films, their place within Suzuki s career and the talent involved with them
•Trailers
•Stills Gallery
•Reversible sleeves featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys
•60-page illustrated collector's book featuring new writing by Jasper Sharp

Official Box-Set Purchase Link





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