Underworld Beauty

Ankokugai no bijo

Japan

1958

87 Min

Black and White

2.35:1

Japanese

Currently 3.4/5 Stars.
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CAST Michitaro Mizushima, Mari Shirake, Hideaki Nitani, Shinsuke Ashida, Hiroshi Kondo, Kaku Takashima, Tôru Abe

The moment he’s released from prison, the honorable gangster Miyamoto recovers the stolen diamonds he had stashed before getting pinched. When he returns to his old haunt to make good by a friend who took a bullet for him, he is diverted y the greedy boss Oyane and his insatiable taste for Miyamoto’s precious stones. Replete with film noir style, Underworld Beauty is one of Suzuki’s best nods to the American gangster genre. —Amazon

Director

Seijun Suzuki

Seijun Suzuki (鈴木清順, Suzuki Seijun?), born Seitaro Suzuki (鈴木清太郎 Suzuki Seitarō) on May 24, 1923, is a Japanese filmmaker, actor, and screenwriter. His films are renowned by film enthusiasts worldwide for their jarring visual style, irreverent humour, nihilistic cool and entertainment-over-logic sensibility. He made 40 predominately B-movies for the Nikkatsu Company between 1956 and 1967, working most prolifically in the yakuza genre. His increasingly surreal style began to draw the ire of the studio in 1963 and culminated in his ultimate dismissal for what is now regarded his magnum opus, Branded to Kill (1967), starring notable collaborator Joe Shishido. Suzuki successfully sued the studio for wrongful dismissal but was blacklisted for 10 years. As an independent filmmaker he won critical acclaim and a Japanese Academy Award for his Taishō Trilogy, Zigeunerweisen (1980), Kagero-za (1981) and Yumeji (1991).

His films remained widely unknown outside of Japan until a series… read more

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Sunrise

10Apr12

Subtle & undervalued metaphor of an aged gangster whose allegiances to code and honor are things forgotten in the yakuza world to which he returns after a three year sentence. The "Underworld Beauty" resides in those willing to uphold older codes against the younger and more aggressively selfish, particularly friend Mihara and his sister Akiko, played excitingly Shirake, whom is the saving link between this divide.

Christopher Smith

4Oct10

Early effort from Seijun Suzuki is not among his best. A servicable Japanese film noir melodrama with some nice black and white cinematography and an exciting shoot-em-up finale, but ultimately nothing special, though entertaining enough for noir fans.