Name that film, eastern edition.
August 28, 2010 4:40 PM Subscribe
Identify a Japanese film from the 60s or 70s taking place partially in NYC please.
Flipping around the channels while visiting asia about a month back I stumbled across a rather cool looking movie on one of the japanese channels. It featured gentlemen in trenchcoats and hats and had a late 60s/early 70s vibe to it. I didn't watch for long, but the part in NYC had a lengthy New York for beginners intro showing traffic, storefronts, ladies in fur coats, huggy-bear style pimps and the like. The gents then met and talked on the top of a tall building, for some reason I think Rockefeller rather than Empire State though.
The movie looked pretty groovy and I wouldn't mind seeing it with some subtitles in the future. Any ideas?
Bonus: The same channel showed, a couple of nights later, some black and white movie with creepy Herr Japanese Doktor guys sitting around smoking, and clipped in segments of some rather graphic open stomach surgery footage. Ring a bell?
Flipping around the channels while visiting asia about a month back I stumbled across a rather cool looking movie on one of the japanese channels. It featured gentlemen in trenchcoats and hats and had a late 60s/early 70s vibe to it. I didn't watch for long, but the part in NYC had a lengthy New York for beginners intro showing traffic, storefronts, ladies in fur coats, huggy-bear style pimps and the like. The gents then met and talked on the top of a tall building, for some reason I think Rockefeller rather than Empire State though.
The movie looked pretty groovy and I wouldn't mind seeing it with some subtitles in the future. Any ideas?
Bonus: The same channel showed, a couple of nights later, some black and white movie with creepy Herr Japanese Doktor guys sitting around smoking, and clipped in segments of some rather graphic open stomach surgery footage. Ring a bell?
Could it have been The Bodyguard with Sonny Chiba?
posted by cinemafiend at 7:16 PM on August 28, 2010
posted by cinemafiend at 7:16 PM on August 28, 2010
Yes, like cazoo mentions, if Yusaku Matsuda was in it, it might be Proof of the Man (Ningen no shomei). The film itself is... okay, but I suppose it's worth seeing if only for his performance. I love Yusaku Matsuda. But then, every Japanese person my age who grew up watching TV loves Yusaku Matsuda.
The black and white movie you saw might be The Great White Tower (Shiroi kyoto), but then, it could be one of a host of other films that I've never seen before, so this is just a long-shot guess.
posted by misozaki at 7:17 PM on August 28, 2010
The black and white movie you saw might be The Great White Tower (Shiroi kyoto), but then, it could be one of a host of other films that I've never seen before, so this is just a long-shot guess.
posted by misozaki at 7:17 PM on August 28, 2010
Response by poster: Hard to tell the genre, criminal/business/political drama I would guess, it didn't seem from the short part I watched that it was an action film, not a comedy either. The clip with Yusaka Matsuda looks like it might be more modern by quite a few years. I don't think he was in it, I mainly saw the two guys who were rather G-man looking stocky, broad-shouldered and square jawed, clean shaven, short back and sidesy kinda guys. Grey trenchcoat and fedora, serious-business men. Actually, while I say trenchcoat, I wonder if raincoat isn't the better description.
Not The Bodyguard, although that looks like a fun film! Higher production values, and no particularly violent vibe, although the set-up shots were just the kind I meant.
I would say it isn't Proof of the Man either, that also seems a little later, and to have a majority of the movie taking place in NY, my impression was that in my film it was a shorter sequence, they had been sent to meet someone.
From the link though, I have a hard time imagining it wasn't The Great White Tower that I saw, good call! :)
posted by Iteki at 2:11 AM on August 29, 2010
Not The Bodyguard, although that looks like a fun film! Higher production values, and no particularly violent vibe, although the set-up shots were just the kind I meant.
I would say it isn't Proof of the Man either, that also seems a little later, and to have a majority of the movie taking place in NY, my impression was that in my film it was a shorter sequence, they had been sent to meet someone.
From the link though, I have a hard time imagining it wasn't The Great White Tower that I saw, good call! :)
posted by Iteki at 2:11 AM on August 29, 2010
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posted by cazoo at 5:14 PM on August 28, 2010