The Sleeping Beast Within

I recently bough the Seijun Suzuki: The Early Years Vol. 2 The Border Crossing And Action Movies box set from Arrow Video that features: Eight Hours of Terror (1957), The Sleeping Beast Within (1960), Smashing the 0-Line (1960), Tokyo Knights (1961), The Man with a Shotgun (1961). I have already seen Eight Hours of Terror, so I started out with the Nikkatsu Noir, The Sleeping Beast Within (1960). it features Hiroyuki Nagato as Shotaro Kasai a news reporter dating Keiko (Kazuko Yoshiyuki) whose father Junpei Ueki has just returned to Japan after two years working overseas in Hong Kong. Shotaro and Keiko undercover a crime syndicate that her father has become part of after they investigate his going missing for several days. When Shotaro is trying to explain her father’s actions to the distraught Keiko, he points out that everyone has a sleeping beast in their heart which is capable doing terrible things when it awakens.The syndicate is run by a Sun God cult that has a temple in Hakone (and a private island near Kure, Hyogo). The investigations take us all over the seedy parts of Tokyo-Sghibuya and the more squalid bars of Yokohoma where the drug smuggling occurs. Suszuki does a great job of using on location shots in Tokyo, Yokohoma and one the road to Hakone with Mt. Fuji towering in the background. Furthermore, Susuki's adept use of movement within shots and his impressive use of interior geometry are factors that underline his compositional talent. For example, there's classical framing throughout the film as well as several memorable set pieces-including the final shot of a temple burning.