Young Lord Takenaka stands to succeed his father until a series of violent actions Read More »
Tag Archives: Haruko Wanibuchi
The Stairway to the Distant Past / Harukana jidai no kaidan o (1995) Kaizô Hayashi, Masatoshi Nagase, Kiyotaka Nanbara, Haruko Wanibuchi
Mike Hama is a private investigator who has been reduced to combing the mean streets of the Yokohama waterfront on a borrowed bicycle. Read More »
Dasso yugi / Jail Breakers (1976) Kôsaku Yamashita, Shin’ichi Chiba, Haruko Wanibuchi, Eitarô Ozawa, Action, Crime
The film is packed with nice stunts throughout, but the screenplay could be better. After escaping the prison Chiba teams up with a bunch of thugs, who design prison escapes for money. Unfortunately trust and loyalty are unknown concepts to these men who take turns deceiving each other. The endless “who’s-cheating-who” game has been done better in other films, and sometimes the writing is downright sloppy: when a carefully planned escape operation fails, Chiba simply steals a fire engine and drives away without anyone noticing! It also feels that director Kosaku Yamashita, who made his name with yakuza films, was a bit out of his element here. However, even with these weaknesses it’s an entertaining action comedy which compares favourably against some of the later, similar Yasaku Matsuda films like Execution Game (1978) and No Grave for Us (1979). The focus is on stunts and comedy.
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Jail Breakers/ Dasso yugi (1976) Kôsaku Yamashita, Shin’ichi Chiba, Haruko Wanibuchi, Eitarô Ozawa, Action, Crime
Kamiki is a professional fixer of jailbreaks who allows prisoners to escape for big money.
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