User reviews

"Aru koroshi ya" (A Certain Killer / The Hitman, 1967) is a Japanese yakuza/crime film starring Ichikawa Raizo, possibly the country's biggest movie star at the time. Looking at how popular Raizo was, it's a shame that so many of his later films are generic and predictable genre products, where no effort for artistic creativity is made. This film, by the usually quite lazy genre-worker Mori Kazuo, is better than average. It has a good screenplay by Masumura Yasuzo (one of my favorite directors) and Ishimatsu Yoshihiro, based on a novel by Fujiwara Shinji. It's not a yakuza exploitation film, or an action piece without any nuances, but a stylistic affair, that resembles the films of French auteur Jean-Pierre Melville, especially early on in the film.

Set in the post-war, Ichikawa plays a man who becomes a hitman for an old yakuza family in order to make a living. The plot is quite simple - much like the plots in Melville films - but the way it's told gets your attention. The film starts quietly and patiently, and once we get action, even that is done with restrain. Ichikawa gives a good performance, though the leading lady was a bit over-the-top, affecting the mood of the film too much.

Though this is better than most late Ichikawa, I still am a bit bummed it wasn't made by a more exciting director. Mori is not bad, but doesn't make it too memorable either. Comparing it to the greatest of French cinema doesn't of course help, either. Masumura would have been a good choice, or Shinoda Masahiro who made "Kawaita hana" (Pale Flower, 1964). I recommend this to genre fans, and friends of Raizo, but you can certainly find more gripping Japanese crime narratives from the 60's, as well as tons of worse ones.

This "A Certain Killer" is a transposition, for the time, of the myth of the murderous and solitary samurai, also very popular in French cinema of the sixties, as in Jean-Pierre Melville's detective stories, "Le Samourai", from the same year (the title clearly reveals the source of inspiration) is a good example.

Basically, the mythology is ancient and comes from the old ronin of feudal Japan, lost samurai, without a master, the Daimyo, and therefore prevented from living an honorable life according to the Bushido, the samurai code of honor. Nor could they even take their own lives through seppuku (honor-restoring action), being condemned to a dishonorable life.

This myth inspired Kurosawa, it inspired Leone and many westerns, it inspired Melville, it inspired Tarantino, it even inspired Jarmusch, and it also inspired some new wave Japanese cinema, which transposed the myth to contemporary times.

These killers are modern samurai, subject to their own code of honor, but without prejudice in placing themselves at the service of any mafia boss, to commit criminal acts from which, invariably, only they or their friends benefit. They only punish those who deserve it, but generally include in the punishment those who use them, even paying generously, for dishonorable acts.

If the myth is old and has already given rise to many memorable works, and not just in cinema, this film is certainly not one of the best examples. It's not that it's bad, but it's banal, with nothing to distinguish it.

This samurai did not make a school or leave any disciples. It's pure entertainment, in the style of the period.

Marvellous, stylish, hip and very cool mid sixties colour movie from the celebrated Japanese 'B' movie director, Kazuo Mori. Starring the impressive Raizo Ichikawa, who reprised the role in the subsequent 'A Certain Killer's Key' and is astonishingly good in this not putting a foot wrong, unless you count the slightly silly fist fight at the end, which is probably intended to be amusing. the other major asset in this sparkling film is the lovely, Yumiko Nogawa who was still working until very recently and whose first film was that of Seijun Suzuki, 'Gate Of Flesh'. The film itself tells of a highly accomplished hit man a few bad yakuza and some even more bad ones and a guy and a girl who tag along with our hero. Great stuff with more than a nod to the French new wave.