Film Pairing — Off To The Land Of The Rising Sun and Ken Takahura

Tired of American gangsters? Board a jet in the comfort of your own residence and travel across the Pacific to watch American cops track down Japanese criminals in their own land.  Both are older films; but they hold up very well.

Black Rain — In this 1989 Ridley Scott-directed film two New York cops, played y Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia are assigned to take a Japanese criminal back to Japan.  He escapes and the Americans decide they must track him down despite all the language and cultural barriers.  Douglas does well as the ugly American and Andy Garcia does equally well as the charming sidekick as they sink deeper into the world of the yakuza, the Japanese mafia.  The real star is the subdued Ken Takahura who is assigned to reign in the two rowdy and initially out-of-their depth American policemen.  Black Rain makes for a nice evening of quality escapist action.

The Yakuza — Before there was Black Rain there was The Yakuza. Not exactly heralded when it was released in 1974, the film noir directed by Sydney Pollack has more than redeemed itself. The plot is relatively complicated, but introduces the audience to the intricacies of Japanese culture as well as residue from World War II and the ongoing influence of the yakuza. This is an intelligent thriller, with all the violence that goes with it. Robert Mitchum plays a slightly aging, retired police detective who travels to Japan to help an old friend rescue his kidnapped daughter. Paul and Leonard Schrader wrote the screenplay with help from Robert Towne. A younger Ken Takahura is outstanding in a principal role.  Brian Keith and James Shigeta are also featured.

To augment your viewing pleasure – Saki. Cold or warm. For many of us westerners  who have no idea how varied Saki may be, it’s worth investigating.  For those who avoid alcohol, nothing wrong with a plum spritzer. Just remember, it’s a pretty tough night on screen.

Film Pairings — Tough Cops Up Against The Glass Ceiling

As regular readers know, the choices here are not necessarily the best crime fiction films ever.  In some cases, I look at movies that might have slipped under the radar for good reason.  My thinking is that even a mediocre crime film might be more entertaining than an evening of reruns or the fifth time through a Suzie Orman money management lecture, when in fact, you have no money to manage.  Here are two flawed movies, each with some interesting moments.  The two movies provide an interesting study about how two female cops (and the people who play them) can fight gender bias and their own demons get the job done.

Andy Garcia and Ashley Judd

Twisted — Ashley Judd takes the lead in murder investigations that somehow lead back to her.  She must fight against the department’s entrenched beliefs that women are less capable of dealing with such tough assignments and that she, in particular, may not be up to the task.  Samuel L. Jackson plays her mentor, Andy Garcia her partner, and David Strathairn her mental health counselor. The director Philip Kaufman and cinematographer Peter Deming make the best of San Francisco’s dramatically photogenic locations to set the noirish mood. Twisted was released in 2004

Sandra Bullock and Ryan Gosling

Murder By Numbers — I’ve mentioned the famous Leopold and Loeb case as the basis for a number of films in earlier posts. This is another one, though the focus here is on he crime solver, not the criminals. Sandra Bullock gives a more credible performance than Ashley Judd as the somewhat complex, troubled homicide detective. Young Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt provide Bullock with ample challenge.  Gosling is charmingly obnoxious, portraying a character just as maddening and difficult as the character Bullock portrays.  Murder By Numbers was directed by Barbet Schroeder and released in 2002.

A casual night.  You probably won’t be biting your fingernails, but perhaps enjoying a crime film not driven by testosterone. How about some Cabernet or a café au lait?