Blackmail is my Life (1968)

Production: Shochiku
Color / Length: Color, 89 minutes
Director: Kinji Fukasaku
Actors: Hiroki Matsukata, Tomomi Sato, Yoko Mihara, Tetsuro Tamba

If you know Kinji Fukasaku only as the director from such gritty, intense and bloody movies like „Fight without honor and humanity“ or „Battle Royale“ be prepared for something different with „Blackmail is my life“. Though „Blackmail“ does have it’s share of gruesome death‘ it is rather tame in comparison to the „Fight“-Movies. Not meaning, that it isnt good....

Hiroki Matsukata is Shun the charming but ruthless leader of a gang of blackmailers. He spends his time scheming on how to make more money, to finance his dandy-lifestyle. He doesn’t even stop from his ex-Girlfriend, now a high class actress, to get whatever he needs to pull through his intricate plans. But he hits bad luck, when he gets involved in a deal bigger than his usual small time blackmailings. Trying to gamble with corrupt politicians is as clever as pissing on an electrified wire. What starts out as a charming little story of a gang of outsiders, who make a living with crime, takes a turn into gritty crime drama about half way through. Shot in a style close to the French new wave, one can see where Fukasakus „cinema verite“–docu style, that he later perfected with his Fight-movies, had it’s roots. Though not an action-packed movie it has some nice action-set pieces. One of the highlights being the drug-deal gone wrong. Shot in a day for night style that at first irritates, it climaxes in a bloodbath, that taints the image of the „Heroes“.

Fukasaku got together an interesting and good looking cast, headed by a young Hiroki Matsukata who had made a splash two years earlier with „Yakuza Hoodlum“. Still far from his more tough roles in the seventies, he manages to convince as a charming but still dangerous Gangster. If you liked „Breathless“ (the Godard-Version) and/or are curious what put Fukasaku on his way to „Fight without honor and humanity“, check out „Blackmail is my life“. Not a masterpiece and not strictly Yakuza-Eiga, but an interesting little gem.

3 1/2 Kitanos