1958 ‘暗黒街の美女’ Directed by Seijun Suzuki
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 haunt to make good by friend who took a bullet for him, he is diverted by the greedy boss Oyane and his insatiable taste for Miyamoto's precious stones.
Michitarō Mizushima Mari Shiraki Hideaki Nitani Shinsuke Ashida Hiroshi Kondō Kaku Takashina Tōru Abe Bumon Kahara Keisuke Yukioka Jun Miyazaki Shōki Fukae Seijiro Takano Zenji Yamada Setsuko Amamiya Ryusei Ito Tomio Aoki Kazuo Mihara Kazuo Kinugasa Hiroshi Chō Daisuke Ōmi Kyoichi Mizuki Shirō Yanase Ichiro Kijima Hiroshi Kato Harold Conway
Ankokugai no bijo, Красота преисподней, Красотка преступного мира, Красота преступного мира, 암흑가의 미녀
Russian Federation
Japan
Japan
Russian Federation
Action! - The Way of the Yakuza: Suzuki's Irreverent, Jarring and Illogical Brand
Am I the only one who gets plenty of Melville’s vibes in the camera and staging work here? The pacing is slightly more energetic, but the slickness is very reminiscent of the French auteur. The framing and constant movement of the camera along with the stunning black and white cinematography is hypnotic. The film was shot on Cinemascope and Suzuki makes a fantastic use of this, lending the film a great scale and utilizing the space around him that allows us to have a greater sense of location and become more immersed, all while crafting some great shots that stays with you. The score has this almost…
Underworld Beauty was an important film for Seijun Suzuki, as it marked the first time he was credited under that name (as opposed to his given name, Seitaro Suzuki), as well as his first work in Cinemascope, and arguably his first "major" film. Though it lacks the kinetic energy and splashy visuals of his biggest hits, it's nevertheless visually alluring — nudity is cloaked in creative ways, and mannequin production is effectively creepy — and is fairly well paced, with a strong first act and a creative, tension-filled final confrontation.
The story of stolen diamonds and the efforts of various yakuza to do what "right" with them (and by "right", they mean "decide who should get to have them and…
"Everybody's hurting these days."
The noir-shadowed crossroads of morality and money, sexuality and solidarity
Underworld Beauty's premise follows similar lines to the later Cruel Gun Story, a common story structure for this time period of Japanese cinema not because it was rote or clichéd but because it reached towards a certain salient cultural anxiety. The honorable gangster Miyamoto gets out of jail and returns to his boss eager to make good on a deal gone bad only to be informed that he's out at headquarters managing one of his other businesses. Everybody else is hurting these days, it seems; not the criminal underworld.
Miyamoto wants to sell diamonds he stashed from the job that put him away and he wants…
“What a dangerous welcome.”
A stolen jewels, nude modeling and creepy mannequins Yakuza noir from Seijun Suzuki. Next to 1957’s Eight Hours of Terror, this is one of the earliest Suzuki films I’ve seen. It’s not as easy to find as some of the other early films from his career, but a subbed version does exist if you dig hard enough. If it was packaged with one of those two-volume sets, it would neatly fit in with his Nikkatsu Borderless Action films, a bleak crime thriller with precious diamonds, cool antiheros and killer dames.
After three years in prison, Miyomoto is released and wants to give his share of stolen stones to Mihara, a partner who took a bullet in…
Miyamoto gets outta jail and immediately wants to give up the diamonds he hid awhile ago to his partner that lost his leg while helping him get the diamonds. Miyamoto is a good dude and wants to take care of his crippled friend and they go to sell the stones to some rich white dude and there's a double cross and his friend swallows the diamonds and jumps off a building. More shady yakuza shenanigans ensue where everyone is trying to screw eachother over and Miyamoto just wants to give the stones to his friends sister, Akiko, because his friend died. Slightly humorous, nicely shot, but it starts to drag in the second half and get repetitive with the constant changing of ownership of the diamonds. Still a decent jam from Seijun Suzuki.
One of those rare cases in which the simplicity of the main plot is surpassed by the aggregate sum of its parts is exemplified by Underworld Beauty, Suzuki's personal nod to American film-noir cinema with memorable characters that you do give a hoot about, a yakuza with a double moral of his own, an aggressive femme fatale incorrectly advertised in the movie's most famous HVe cover (although that's one amazing art cover, to be sure), an unparalleled use of shadows, camera angles and lightning throughout to create a truly absorbing crime underworld, memorable scenes, and a climax so suspenseful and action-packed that even your seat gets as pumped-up as you.
Suzuki's early film-noir is not only a promise of greater…
Proto Suzuki, full of flashes of what is to come. Very indebt to American crime films, but has a cruelty streak and a high textured underworld that are already very much its own. Suzuki’s control of light and space is already unique.
Early Nikkatsu noir, early Suzuki. Noble intentions and stolen diamonds lead to a whole mess of double-crosses, Yakuza greed, and gunfire. Loose plot, jazzy thrills, odd turns, great Suzuki set-pieces. The story is paced oddly and those diamonds wind up in the most unlikely of places, but the finale is a furious blast that highlights Suzuki’s talent for maximizing the action potential of unique spaces.
A gangster named Miyamoto gets out of prison after serving three years for a diamond heist. He hid the diamonds before being caught and his partner was injured and is now disabled and running a street cart. The partner has a sister who is (or becomes) the Underworld Beauty.
When Miyamoto gets out he wants to sell the diamonds and give the money to his partner. So he goes to the boss who has contact. A deal is made, but during the sale it goes south and the disabled partner swallows the diamonds and jumps off a roof. How are the gangsters going to get the diamonds back? Well, I'm not going to spoil that for you, but they do, and there are double-crosses, greed, and honor at stake.
A pretty solid Yakuza film, and an early enough Suzuki that it has a straight narrative and shows some excellent camera work.
Fascinating colonisation of the classic Warner Brothers gangster movie by a studio which became synonymous with this kind of film in Japan, and paved the way for ’Nikkastu Noir’, an important sub-genre in the emerging sixties Japanese New Wave. It is brutal, grisly at times, and action-packed, populated by the usual motley and extreme characters one expects (and should embrace) in these hybrid genre films. It is also the kind of picture which is a natural fit for director Seijun Suzuki’s transgressive inclinations, so it is often abruptly subversive in its visual style, turning a critical eye on the consequences of this new urban reality in Japan. The female lead, the ‘underworld beauty’, is a young rebel (something else the new Japan was exploring at the time) and she’s pretty annoying. Otherwise, this is exciting filmmaking, Suzuki’s first use of widescreen (Nikkatsu Scope), which he takes to like a dame to a diamond necklace.
New Year, Same Old Suzuki
Due to some events I wasn’t able to watch much since January 1st, so this marks my first film of 2024, what a kickoff!
Seijun Suzuki’s Underworld Beauty is one of his earlier Japanese yakuza pictures where he evidently begins to start finding his style as a director. Suzuki was known for his B-movies, but what made him stand out was being able to add so much of himself into them. He found his own style, that classic Suzuki flair which cinephiles all know and love. Underworld Beauty is nothing short of wonderful cinematography, shootouts, weird comic relief, and an entertaining story.
When watching Underworld Beauty I couldn’t help but notice the clear homages to…
I couldn't tell if this was a parody or an homage to American film noir (or both), but whatever it is it was pretty fantastic.
The fairly simplistic plot is but a jumping-off point for Suzuki's stylistic flare. Besides the stunning cinematography by Wataro Nakao and Naozumi Yamamoto's eclectic score, the cast of characters are infinitely watchable and injected with conflicted vitality -- particularly Mari Shiraki as the strong-willed, no-bull femme fatale. Suzuki turns the most basic of actions into a barrage of feelings, spanning the emotional gamut from comedy to fear to sadness in a matter of seconds.
I'm glad I have more Suzuki on my Noirvember watchlist, because I can't wait to watch more of his work.
Noirvember 2016: 08/31
