a colt is my passport Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Ratings History: Opening in theaters in Thailand this past weekend, Yuthlert Sippapak's Buppah Rahtree 3.2: Rahtree's Revenge made history as "the first Thai film to be classified under Thailand's new motion-picture ratings system," reports Wise Kwai at his Thai Film Journal. The latest installment of a series that began with one of my favorite comedy / horror films of all time, Rahtree's Revenge is "suggested only for viewers aged 18 and older." Wise Kwai points out that Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds probably has the honor as the first film from any country to be rated under the new Thai system.

Classic Film Noir on DVD: The next edition of Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, is fast approaching; meanwhile, one of my personal highlights from two years ago will finally be released on DVD tomorrow. Eclipse Series 17: Nikkatsu Noir, a five-disc box set from the Criterion Collection, features Takashi Nomura's A Colt is My Passport, "a vivid hitman drama that anticipates [Seijun Suzuki's] Branded to Kill," as I wrote previously. It's "not as brassily discordant as the Suzuki film, yet it too stretches the limits of its genre framework ... the action is staged in such dynamic bursts that it provoked giddy laughter and applause at the screening."

Nikkatsu Noir also includes Suzuki's Take Aim at the Police Van, Toshio Masuda's Rusty Knife, Koreyoshi Kurahara's I Am Waiting, and Takumi Furukawa's Cruel Gun Story, all released by Japanese distributor Nikkatsu between 1957 and 1964. Few have seen the flicks since their release, since they've been languishing in film vaults for many years, but this is one fan who's eager to catch up. You can't see my heart bursting out of my chest with joy, but I assure you that it is.

Innovative director Seijun Suzuki created a string of dazzling films for the Nikkatsu Studio in Japan stretching from 1963's Youth of the Beast to 1967's Branded to Kill. The breathtaking but sometimes bewildering artistry of those films played to increasingly empty theaters and so befuddled the head of the studio that Suzuki was finally fired and didn't work again for a decade. Suzuki's story has become well known and many of his films have now been restored, screened at festivals and released on DVD.

According to film critic Mark Schilling, though, Suzuki was not the only innovative director working within the Nikkatsu Studio system in the 1960s. Based on the tantalizing evidence presented in the three rarely-seen films screened in the Nikkatsu Action Cinema Retrospective at Fantastic Fest, Schilling has a strong case. A Colt is My Passport is a vivid hitman drama that anticipates Branded to Kill, while The Warped Ones is a completely unhinged exercise that feels like 75 minutes of free jazz improvisation and Velvet Hustler masterfully deconstructs a routine crime story with color and finesse.

Schilling appeared in person to introduce the films and answered questions after each screening. Based in Tokyo since 1975, he has been reviewing films for The Japan Times since 1989 and currently also serves as Japan correspondent for Variety. He latest book is No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action Cinema, just published by Fab Press. The book was originally written to accompany a 16-film retrospective he curated for the Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy, in 2005, and has now been expanded and slightly revised. In the introduction, Schilling explains that his aim is "not to challenge the critical consensus -- Suzuki is a master, after all -- but to broaden the discussion." Schilling provides a history of the Nikkatsu Studio and puts Suzuki's accomplishments, and those of his peers, into perspective. The book is well-written, lavishly illustrated and highly recommended.