Directed by Seijun Suzuki • 1966 • Japan
Starring Tetsuya Watari, Chieko Matsubara, Tamio Kawaji
In this jazzy gangster film, reformed killer Tetsu’s attempt to go straight is thwarted when his former cohorts call him back to Tokyo to help battle a rival gang. Director Seijun Suzuki’s onslaught of stylized violence and trippy colors is equal parts Russ Meyer, Samuel Fuller, and Nagisa Oshima—an anything-goes, in-your-face rampage. TOKYO DRIFTER is a delirious highlight of the brilliantly excessive Japanese cinema of the sixties.
Up Next in Directed by Seijun Suzuki
-
Fighting Elegy
Directed by Seijun Suzuki • 1966 • Japan
Starring Hideki Takahashi, Junko Asano, Yusuke KawazuHigh schooler Kiroku Nanbu yearns for the prim, Catholic Michiko, but her only desire is to reform Kiroku’s sinful tendencies. Hormones raging, Kiroku channels his unsatisfied lust into the only outlet...
-
Branded to Kill
Directed by Seijun Suzuki • 1967 • Japan
When Japanese New Wave bad boy Seijun Suzuki delivered this brutal, hilarious, and visually inspired masterpiece to the executives at his studio, he was promptly fired. Branded to Kill tells the ecstatically bent story of a yakuza assassin with a fetish f...
-
Zigeunerweisen
Directed by Seijun Suzuki • 1980 • Japan
Starring Toshiya Fujita, Naoko Otani, Yoshio HaradaAfter over a decade in the wilderness following his firing from Nikkatsu, maverick director Seijun Suzuki returned with a vengeance with the Taisho Trilogy, an acclaimed triptych of cryptic supernatural ...
