Hishakaku and Kiratsune: A Tale of Two Yakuza

Hishakaku and Kiratsune: A Tale of Two Yakuza

  • Overview
  • Cast
  • Crew
  • Recommendations

Status

Released

Release Date

Oct 25, 1968

Runtime

1h 49m

Genres

Crime

User Score

60%

Original Title

人生劇場 飛車角と吉良常

Production Companies

Toei Company

Director

Tomu Uchida

Description

With his penultimate film, Uchida revisited one of his popular prewar titles, 1936’s Theatre of Life, an adaptation of Shiro Ozaki’s eponymous novel. Three-time Seijun Suzuki collaborator Goro Tanada wrote a gangsterized adaptation of Ozaki’s story for Uchida at a time when the yakuza had eclipsed the samurai genre as Toei's main cash crop. Protagonist Hishakaku murders a man in a quarrel over a barmaid and goes to jail. In his temporary absence, his girlfriend Otoyo, a former geisha, falls for Hishakaku’s brother, inciting a dangerous love triangle that, in typical yakuza fashion, ends tragically.