The Warped World of Koreyoshi Kurahara

Koreyoshi Kurahara, a contemporary of cult Japanese genre directors Seijun Suzuki and Kinji Fukasaku, was one of the group of ambitious filmmakers who made crime thrillers, youth dramas, and other genre films for the Japanese studio Nikkatsu through the 1960s. This set compiles five pictures that Kurahara made between 1960 and 1967. Serving as a kind of prologue to the others, Intimidation (1960) is a tightly wound noir-ish crime thriller about a predatory bank manager, a submissive assistant, and a blackmail scheme. The juvenile-delinquent drama The Warped Ones (1960) teems with energy and uninhibited wildness in its tale of a chaotic antihero who bounces from one brutal antic to another without a glimmer of self-awareness or moral twinge—all presented in a style that's like cinematic jazz, with riffs and digressions, recalling early Jean-Luc Godard. The characters in Black Sun (1964) occupy a postwar world of garbage dumps, nuclear plants, and poisoned oceans, while the story—revolving around a machine gun–toting AWOL U.S. soldier befriended by a music-crazed Japanese drifter—plays out against an original score by American jazz legend Max Roach. The Warped Ones and Black Sun represent the set's highlights, serving up portraits of an unstable culture. Also featured here are the romantic-comedy road movie I Hate But Love (1962), the only color offering; and Thirst for Love (1967), an erotic psychological drama based on a novel by Yukio Mishima. While this collection will have more cult than wide appeal—even among fans of foreign cinema—these films offer an often fascinating glimpse into the stylistically exciting Japanese genre films of the ‘60s. A strong optional purchase. (S. Axmaker)