"Blueprint of Murder", 1961 movie review part one

 

 Release Date: January 3, 1961  Length: 73 minutes   Subbed by Opensubs

Director: Kiachi Okamoto, though not too busy after 1980 he directed his final film in 2002

Screenplay by Shinichi Sekizawa who mainly wrote Sci-fi films such as Mothra and Varan

 Second film in a row that starred Yuzo Kayama, I really liked him in "Sun Above, Death Below" and while a fine actor was known more for his music. He still performs on occasion these days but is 87 in age so of course not too often, he was 23 when this film was released and think it was his first starring role. Do recommend checking out Yuzo's Ja.wiki page and what a long and interesting career he's had. As you can tell by the title there was a murder which was the key storyline but there was another theme. Which was of Industrial Espionage which I don't think is a common genre. The following year "Black Test Car" was released and it did have the same theme, I enjoyed that movie more than this one and will discuss that more in the next post which is part two of the review.

 Don't know if there are many other movies with an Industrial Espionage storyline, sure there are but I'm not aware of them so drop a comment if you know of more of these from Japan. The Blueprint in the title refers to plans for a new car design created by the character of Komatsu. For a change don't have much to add in about the film in this section though it does star a few medium sized faves of mine such as Kumi Mizuno and what an attractive woman she was, just wish her role was slightly larger but will get to more of her movies in the future. **** Though just a 73 minute movie I bet more took place in this one than a film being twice as long!!!! It was hard to believe how much happened as there was rarely even a two second pause to allow us viewers to catch our breath! For such a short movie there were many main characters as most below had a decent amount of screen time. Will get to all the major details but not all the others as so much did take place which I guess could be considered a positive.

Yuzo Kayama as Jiro Kusaka.... Though he had the lead role seems as there were a few others with almost as much screen time. Jiro was am instructor at a Whaling Training Center, a place where he taught others how to hunt Whales though it wasn't an important part of the story. Jiro's older brother Ichiro was a test car driver and had died in an accident, his boss Komatsu who is above felt it was no accident but murder! So Jiro rushed back to Tokyo from his seaside school, it wasn't his intention but with his best friend Ken Sudo worked to solve the mystery of Ichiro's death. He doesn't look al that strong but Jiro was one tough fighter and had attended a university where he met the next character.

Masaru Sato as Ken Sudo.... This is an actor who I've always liked and was so superb in the "Akai Meiro" drama from 1974-75 which was recapped a few months back. In this film he played the role of Ken Sudo who was the owner of a struggling weekly tabloid called True World. Sudo was also its main reporter and had attended university with Jiro but they hadn't seen each other for a year. Sudo could be a bit of a clown though when the chips were down was very serious, he did love to drink and was helping his pal Jiro with the mystery of Ichiro's death.... or should I say murder! In the second screenshot is Sudo's only other True World worker who was Naomi, we didn't see her too often.

Ichiro Nakatani as Shizuo Komatsu.... Owner and main engineer of Komatsu Motors, he was the person Jiro's brother Ichiro was a test driver for. Komatsu was a very decent man and was the first to say Ichiro's death was a murder and not an accident. Many companies had been trying to buy and then steal Komatsu's new plans for a car but he won't sell, it's where the angle of Industrial Espionage comes into play. His company does have a plant on site for developing plans and such but the main  factory is somewhere else. The biggest storyline was two rival gangs trying to steal Komatsu's new car design, at the end what a trick he pulled on a gangster group who stole his fake plan! Komatsu's assistant was his younger sister Kyoko who we didn't see too often but was one cutie!

Tatsuya Mihashi as Azuma.... Detective on the Ichiro Kusaka case, at first he thought it was an accident as it had occurred at a dangerous mountain curve. But then the evidence began to build up plus there was one more killing so Azuma began to believe he did have a murder case. He was a smart man who allowed Jiro and Sudo to work privately on the case.

Seizaburo Kawazu as Yusaku Otori.... Owner of the Goei Economic Reporting Agency which was actually a criminal organization. He tried to buy the new car plans from Komatsu, when that failed he had Ichiro killed so while not a killer was the man puling all of the strings. Otori's business had made many shady deals which paid off well for his Yakuza clients though at the end he was the target of another rival gang.

 Naoya Kusakawa as Maekawa.... Main economic advisor for Otori's company and what a slimy man he turned out to be! Maekawa also had ties to the unnamed group the next character Shiman led and at the end turned traitor to his main boss Otori. Maekawa did appear to be a wimpish man as he was no fighter but did play a role in the death of Ichiro Kusaka and also tried to kill his brother Jiro.

Tadao Nakamura as Akira Shiman.... Think the name is really Shima but the subs added on the N. Nakamura is a well known face to me as he's appeared in so many older Yakuza movies, he always played a gangster but often had some class to him. Shiman's gang was unnamed but he too was like Otori as he tried to buy the plans for Komatsu's new car, when that failed stealing was his only option. Later on Shiman's goons did kidnap Otori along with Sudo but both escaped by the skin of their teeth.

 Mickey Curtis as Miki(!).... The main henchman for Otori though was friends with Sudo who he did help out at the end. That's him on the right below, Curtis was another long time veteran of movies and his father was from England but his mother was Japanese and Japan is where he was born.

 Ko Mishima as Ichiro Kusaka.... Jiro's older brother and though he died in the first five minutes he was the key to the movie. Ichiro was a test driver for Komatsu Motors and had been killed while doing a test drive on a mountain road, at first it was ruled an accident but according to Komatsu it was murder! Shiman had tried blackmailing Ichiro to steal the blueprints for this new car, when Ichiro wouldn't be was killed! By a thug named Fusakichi who had used the alias name of Boshu, shortly after he too was murdered so he wouldn't rat out Shiman and his gang! Ichiro is in the first screenshot, Fusakichi is in the second.

 

Yukiko Shimazaki as ????.... She was a singer at the Palason club owned by Shiman, not a huge amount of screen time but enough so it was odd her name was never uttered once! So will use her real name of Yukiko in the review, at the time this film came out she was 29 in age and besides being an actress she was also a popular singer. In the movie Yukiko did play a spy who worked for a Hong Kong group, she too was planning on stealing the designs for Komatsu's new car and the plan was a solid one. However it didn't pan out and a small gripe from me is what happened to Yukiko(?)as she had been waiting for the stolen plans to be delivered to her at Haneda Airport. That didn't happen but we never did learn what Yukiko had ended up doing along with her three henchmen who are in the background of the first screenshot.

 Kumi Mizuno as Tomi.... Hostess at the Palason nightclub and also was friends with Sudo. Not enough screen time for Tomi but she was a bit of a key character towards the end

 May add in the character of Nonoka who is mentioned in the above screenshot, I was a bit confused about him and hoping can figure out more about him while writing part one up. He wasn't too important to the story as he didn't get a lot of screen time but his small gang was mentioned many times. Hadn't been doing well with videos for some of these recent movie reviews, did have one for the the last film but there wasn't any for three of the four before that. But in a surprise there is a trailer for this film which is right below and it is a fairly good one with much action, the movie was wall to wall of it!

 

 

 Think it was four reviews ago that I added in some photos of Kumi Mizuno and have even more above. She played the role of Tomi in this film, not a large role but it was an early one for her as she was just 23 in age and did play many major characters in quite a 1960's Sci-fi flicks. Have an encore viewing of Kumi as she truly is one of my all time top looking women 😍, to me not many have ever topped her and highly recommend viewing her 1963 movie "Matango" which is the top pic. Have mentioned the movie many times but won't be reviewing it as there's enough of them already plus am sticking with movies I had never viewed before. "Matango" is part Sci-fi, part horror, part action and part drama.... but the biggest part was Kumi and did she look so alluring!

 No need to add much more in as the above section is quite detailed and it needed to be for as mentioned I was stunned at how much took place in this film. When I view a film or drama will have a piece of paper to jot down notes and such, very rarely will I fill up one page. But did so for this movie and that was by the fifty minute mark(!), tried to keep what took place after in my head and hope I remembered most of it. But even if that's not the case it's why the screenshots are so important and hope you view those besides reading my writing. Let's get to the action which was not in short supply, this first scene of a car crash death set the tone for the whole movie.

 

 The location for this opening scene was Mitsukaku Pass aka Triangle Peak which you will see mentioned more so in the screenshots. That man in the second and third screenshots was Ichiro Kusaka who was the top test driver for Komatsu Motors. Two of those screenshots above show Ichiro testing out a new vehicle and the car seemed to be doing well as it hit a speed of close to 75 mph, Ichiro wanted to take it out for another spin to get that speed even higher. On that first test Ichiro hadn't noticed a motorcycle tailing him, that's in the first screenshot and also in the fourth when he was on his second test drive. That bike was getting a bit too close for comfort for Ichiro and Triangle Pass was on a mountain with some sharp curves. Waiting in ambush near the summit was a dump truck, when Ichiro's car was near the top the truck quickly pulled out from behind a corner and Ichiro had only one option to avoid it. Which was to tumble down the steep mountain ravine and that's shown in the middle screenshot above, once the car began to flip over that was it for Ichiro as the car burst into flames ending his life. The bike and dump truck soon zoomed away but we'll be learning the identities of both later, the rider of the motorcycle does have a biggish role. That scene only lasted for 3-4 minutes, it was exciting but probably didn't sound that way. There were of course no witnesses, with the crash taking place on such a dangerous curve the police naturally ruled Ichiro's death as an accident.

 In that sixth screenshot above is the movie's man star who was the younger brother of Ichiro, Jiro Kusaka. He was an instructor at a Whaling Gun Center, a place that trained men to hunt whales and that brief scene was the only time we saw Jiro there and it had no part of the story. Jiro was notified of his brother's death and rushed back to Tokyo from whatever seaside town he had been at, the police told Jiro the death was an accident and of course at first he believed them. But soon Jiro hooked up with Shizuo Komatsu, the owner of Komatsu Motors and seemed like such a decent man to me. He was there when Ichiro was taking those test drives in his newest car, Komatsu didn't see the actual scene of when Ichiro went down the ravine for he was at the bottom of the mountain but knew it was no accident. Komatsu was the first to say that Ichiro was murdered(!) and told Jiro that it was a case of Industrial Espionage as he wouldn't sell those designs of his new car. That was the first time Jiro had ever heard the term and Komatsu did explain some of what it meant with the main part being some people wanted those designs so badly they would even kill to get them! Komatsu Motors was a small company and much easier to swindle than large ones, he had told the police of his suspicions but they ignored Komatsu and closed the case. However Komatsu did have such solid evidence and what he told Jiro convinced him too that his brother had been murdered but how could be possibly solve the crime if the police won't?

 The man in the sunglasses in the top two screenshots was the detective assigned to Ichiro's case, his name was Azuma and of course at first had thought the death was an accident. He worked at the Minamizawa precinct which isn't a real place and Jiro had paid the detective a visit. He told Azuma of his conversation with Komatsu and what kind of driver/man his brother Ichiro was so slowly Azuma began to wonder if perhaps there may have been some truth to it being murder and not an accident. What did the trick to convince Azuma was the dead man in the third screenshot, his name was Fusakichi but had been going by the name of Boshu. Azuma had heard a rumor of Boshu stealing a dump truck and had been seen heading to Triangle Pass, what a huge clue for Azuma. Which soon evaporated as before he could be questioned Boshu had been run over by a car and died instantly, now Azuma knew he was on to something and though he worked hard on the case wasn't the one to officially solve it. The fourth screenshot above along with many others shows the second main character in the film who was Ken Sudo. He owns a weekly tabloid named True World, he has only one other employee and is in debt up to his ears, Sudo was also the only reporter. The key part about Sudo is that he had once been best fiends with Jiro and the pair had attended the same university.

 When Sudo heard of Ichiro's 'accident' he knew something fishy had taken place, soon after Jiro returned to Tokyo the friends did reunite. For the rest of the film the pair were often together trying to solve the case as a team, Jiro is a very strict and serious man while Sudo is a bit of a goofball and loves to drink. Those could be a bit of an act of Sudo's to make others not pay attention to him as he was very aware of everything that happened around him plus did save Jiro's life twice. Jiro began the investigation by visiting his brother's apartment, there he found a letter addressed to him that Ichiro hadn't mailed yet. In it he mentioned that a man named Otori was trying to blackmail Ichiro into stealing the designs for Komatsu's new car but of course Ichiro would never do such a thing. On a second visit to the apartment Jiro found a threatening letter from Otori saying Ichiro had one last chance to steal the plans or that was it for him!!!! Who was this Otori man(?) Jiro naturally wondered and went to his best friend Sudo with that question, Sudo seemed to know every gangster in Tokyo! So Sudo brought Jiro to the office of Otori who ran a company named Goei Economic Reporting Agency, supposedly it was a legit investing firm but was actually a front for the Yakuza to launder and hide their money. That's Otori in the bottom screenshot above, of course he denied knowing anything about Ichiro's death which infuriated Jiro and we will see this thug often enough in the movie.

 Final segment for this post and it will bring us up to the halfway point of the screenshots. So far bet the review doesn't make the movie appear to be action packed but it certainly was and think trying to describe action or excitement isn't always easy to do. Jiro paid Komatsu another visit and told him of how Ichiro was being threatened with blackmail but refused to play along and turn against Komatsu who was also a close friend. He told Jiro his new car was not only one that could reach higher speeds but also a car that would use less gas, put those two together and you can see why others want those designs. Komatsu had some offers to sell those plans but they were way too low or were for the wrong purpose. Meaning that Oil companies had wanted the new car's designs for if they could obtain them would make sure the car would never go into production less their profits fall!!!! That conversation is in the top two screenshots, the bottom two are of another chat Jiro had with Komatsu. Who told Jiro those designs could fetch an easy 100 million yen on the international market but he himself had only been offered 10 million at most by Otori, after Komatsu refused the offer the gangster was now planning on stealing them. That's Otori in the third to last screenshot talking with some unknown man about the designs and as you can see Otori had said two Oil companies are willing to pay highly if those plans are ever obtained. 

 In the bottom screenshot Komatsu mentioned the name of Maekawa, he's the man in the third screenshot above. We didn't see much of him in the first half of the movie but he will be playing a key role in the second half, he's the main 'economic advisor' to Otori and did seem to be intelligent at such matters though these days for Maekawa it's for illegal activities. He was the man who represented Otori in those offers to Komatsu, in a devious move Maekawa was also working for the man in the middle screenshot who Jiro was talking to. He too didn't have a lot of screen time in this first half but will in the next post, his name was Akira Shiman. He owns the Palason nightclub and is also the leader of a small gangster group, Jiro had asked too many questions at the club and had been threatened by one of Shiman's goons. Jiro is a superb fighter as he easily took a gun  away from a thug and returned it to Shiman who wanted nothing to do with a furious Jiro, his best mate Sudo arrived on the scene and quickly shuffled Jiro away for he knew how badly things may have ended for Jiro. The woman above who was singing was named Yukiko and was a very popular singer at Shiman's Palason club. She too will have a bigger role in the second half of the film and is one of a trio trying to get the plans from Komatsu for his new car. Otori is one of them as mentioned a few times, so isn't Yukiko who works for a gang out of Hong Kong and also Shiman has his eyes set on those very valuable designs. So with that this first part of the review comes to it's end, there may not have been as much action as I originally thought but the pace was non-stop which continues on for the remainder of the movie. Below are more screenshots of what's taken place up until this point.