Yasuzo Masumura may the most under rated director of the New Wave era. Irezumi (1966) is just the third film that I have seen by Masumura, but all three have been impressive (Giants and Toys and Manji). Furthermore, this screen play was penned by fellwo New Wave director/screenwriter, Kaneto Shindo (Oninbaba). This is the second adaptation of a Junichiro Tanizaki novel for Masumura in 1966 (Manji was an adaptation of what was translated into English as Quicksand). This film also stars Ayako Wakao (who also played a similar role in Manji and seems well-suited for it) as the femme fatale Otsuya who runs off with an apprentice, Shinisuke (Akio Hasegawa), from her father's shop to hide at the house of her father's friend. He betrays them all when sends a minion to kill Shinisuke and sells Otsuya to a brothel owner while taking money from her father saying that he is searching for her. While Otsuya is in captivity the brothel owner has a tattoo artist give her a spider tattoo which transforms her into a man eater who is adept at getting men to part with their money. Her appetite for money and vengeance eventually consumes her as the stake keep escalating. This type of female is identifiable from Tanizaki's novels like Naomi and Quicksand (unfortunate this novel, "The Tattooer," has not been translated into to English as far as I know). She includes Shinisuke in her plans and corrupts hims o that he does her bidding as he is a weak and sensitive lover. However, he has his limits and when she takes up with a wealthy samurai (Kei Sato) a swift resolution comes to the proceedings. It is a pulpy, but entertaining historical story based on a novel form one of the masters of Japanese literature. In addiiton, Masumara, does an excellent job of composing shots and using is en scene to his artistic advantage. I'm looking forward to seeing more of his films which are somewhat more edgy than some of his predecessors and contemporaries.
Comments