Hishakaku and Kiratsune: A Tale of Two Yakuza

movie

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.

Cast & crew

Tomisaburō Wakayama · Minoru Ōki · Rinichi Yamamoto · Bin Amatsu · Shiro Ozaki · Gorō Tanada · Ken Takakura · Kinzō Shin · Kunio Murai · Tomu Uchida · Koji Tsuruta · Sumiko Fuji · Takeya Nakamura

Studios & networks

Toei Company