Fantastic Fest presents:

Nikkatsu Crime Retro: A COLT IS MY PASSPORT

Rated NR; 84min; Director:Takashi Nomura (1967)

This show is a part of the Fantastic Fest Signature Series, Click to See More

See the other films in this series: THE WARPED ONES (aka WEIRD LOVEMAKERS) on Tuesday Sept 25 and VELVET HUSTLER on Wednesday September 26.

NO BORDERS, NO LIMITS
1960s NIKKATSU ACTION CINEMA Retrospective

The label said it all: Nikkatsu akushon.

Nikkatsu was a studio that had been around since the silent days and akushon was "action," written in the katakana alphabet for foreign words. During their peak, from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, Nikkatsu action films evoked a cinematic world neither foreign nor Japanese. It was a mix of the two, where Japanese tough guys had the swagger, moves, and even the long legs of Hollywood movie heroes. It was a place where the Tokyo streets, Yokohama docks, and Hokkaido hills took on an exciting, exotic aura, as though they were stand-ins for Manhattan, Marseilles, or the American West.

The aim of this retrospective series, first presented at the 2005 Udine Far East Film Festival, is not to challenge the critical consensus, but rather to broaden the discussion by presenting a representative non-Suzuki selection from all periods of Nikkatsu Action. And by doing so, we hope to provide an opportunity for Western audiences to discover some surprising new classics of Japanese genre cinema, and hope that these dramatic, stylish, and entertaining films might some day stand alongside those already enshrined in the critical canon and eventually be made available on home video for a new generation of enthusiastic fans.

With NO BORDERS, NO LIMITS: NIKKATSU ACTION CINEMA author Mark Schilling live in person to introduce each film.

In Takashi Nomura's chilly noirish thriller, Jo Shishido plays a hitman hired by a gang to whack a rival gang boss. He does the deed with a sniper rifle and, together with sidekick Jerry Fujio, makes his escape. But before they can board their getaway plane, they are snatched by thugs from the rival gang. Through Shishido’s quick thinking, they make a narrow escape and end up at a cheap inn for truckers near Yokohama. They arrange passage on a boat bound out of the country, but deadly complications ensue, forcing Shishido to improvise yet another escape for himself and his partner, but before they can depart, they're forced into an explosive showdown with killers from the rival gang. Released at the beginning of Shishido’s second peak year at Nikkatsu—his first was 1961—COLT bears a family resemblance, in its hunted hitman hero, hard-boiled stylistics, impressionistic widescreen black-and-white photography, and mind-bending climactic shoot-out, to Seijun Suzuki’s better-known BRANDED TO KILL, made the same year. Like Suzuki's film, the plot of COLT is spare, yet familiar, and one can see why the directors felt the need to bring such a fresh approach to the visuals. Though the formal experimentation and editing is in no way as extreme as in BRANDED TO KILL, it is still pretty much in evidence. The final showdown between a solitary Shishido and a bullet-proof car full of gangsters staged on a deserted beach at dawn, the howling wind sweeping sand across the ground, is as impressive as anything of the era in this neglected masterpiece. Audiences may be surprised to discover, however, that COLT was released four months earlier than BRANDED, and that it gives fuller play to Shishido’s invention, panache and tough-guy cool, remaining one of the highly prolific actor's Nikkatsu favorites.

Location: Alamo South Lamar

Kid Policy: 18 and up; Children 6 and up will be allowed only with a parent or guardian. No children under the age of 6 will be allowed.

Screenings (click on a show time to buy tickets):

• Monday, September 24, 2007
  • 9:45p