"Sun Above, Death Below".... 1968 movie review part two

 

 Release Date: November 23, 1968  Length: 86 minutes Subs by Mashhamid

Director: Hiromichi Horikawa   Writer: Shuichi Nagahara who also wrote "3 Seconds Before Explosion" which was recently reviewed. Also has gone by the title of Sniper.

 

 In the last two films reviewed did talk about the quality of B/W movies compared to ones in Color, of course not from these days but prior to 1970. It was true that B/W film did have higher quality but that difference was soon worked out. This film was in color and I had no qualms with the quality, one reason could be the dimensions. Seems these 1960's movies did have such odd dimensions and wonder why(?), for this movie they were 853x356. Above is the star of this movie Yuzo Kayama and that wasn't a known name to me but he was the son of the famous old time actor Ken Uhara. Yuzo was 31 when this movie came out and is still alive as he turned 87 in April, it was learned after he met the Beatles in 1966 that he was a distant relative of John Lennon! Wonder how that came to be if it is true and what a long Ja.wiki bio Yuzo has and he was also a musician besides being such a busy actor.

 Have only seen Yuzo in a few movies but one I may view soon is from 1974 and titled "ESPY", it's supposed to be a very odd music/spy/action/race car film and may be reviewing that somewhat soon. Now on to the main cast and am starting this section after viewing the first 53 minutes of the 86 minute film. This is a very cool film, Yuzo especially who drove such a fast sportscar and did look so dashing. The action scenes were kind of cool too and there is one other thing to mention. Which is of most movies that came out between 1965-75, you always saw construction going on in Tokyo during the films and what a change in the way the city looks fifty years later. Back then there was a lot of open space but not these days thanks to all of the construction going on during that period which I'm sure lasted longer than the years mentioned.

Yuzo Kayama as Toro Matsushita.... The Assassin who was a very cool and quiet man, not that it matters but did shoot a pistol lefthanded. He never did give a very honest reason for becoming an assassin but Matsushita had hinted around to Akiko it was because of his eternal and extreme nervousness. For some reason when Matsushita plans and performs an assignment he can act perfectly fine and he himself was unsure why that happened. Matsushita does have some habits but they have kept him alive, for instance he will never use the same gun twice and often only brings one bullet with him for if the first didn't hit the target it meant Matsushita had been killed before firing the second bullet! He does get paid well for his efforts, five million yen for the second assignment which is about 20 million yen these days. Of course being a Hitman meant Matsushita was a bit of a loner but was very good friends with Fukazawa who is mentioned below and supplied Matsushita with all of his weapons.

Ruriko Asaoka as Akiko Kodaka.... A fashion model who met Matsushita while on a photo shoot. Akiko wanted him in a group photo which he declined though shortly after the two did become a 'couple'. She is also such a Butterfly fanatic and seems to know everything about them, when she had sex with Matsushita butterflies are what she fantasized about! Her dream was to live on the island of New Guinea and it appeared that would happen near the end of the film though it wasn't to be as Akiko had sadly met her fate....

Masayuki Mori as George Katakura.... Matsushita's new enemy who had been sent back to Japan from wherever to eliminate him after a gold bar robbery. The blond woman who looks American is actually Japanese and her name in the film was Kazuo, not sure if she ever said a word! No she didn't and Katakura is the toughest opponent Matsushita had ever faced. Katakura used an old time German Mauser pistol and never misses with it, he's also so quick on the draw. Like Matsushita Katakura worked free lance, in this movie it was for a Chinese man named Lee to recover some stolen gold and to of course eliminate Matsushita.

Mori Kishida as Fukazawa.... Long time friend of Matsushita who also wanted to be a sniper/assassin but lacked the skills. Fukazawa was the rebellious type who would love to see many country's governments, such as Japan's, be overthrown but is more of a dreamer than doer. However Fukazawa is very talented at fixing guns and owns a weapons shop near a US Army base, Matsushita always gets his guns and ammo from his long time friend.

Takashi Fujiki as Hanada... Owner of a trading company which was actually a front for his illegal activities. It was Hanada who hired Matsushita to be his shooter on the heist of a truck carrying gold bars which were worth a total of 300 million yen! The gold was being smuggled by another criminal group, five were killed in the shootout and of course all by Matsushita. Hanada had three aides who had very few lines, Kudo was one along with Ozawa, the third was Konno who did have a brief scene with Matsushita.

 One thing which I enjoy quite a bit in doing posts for dramas and films is that it gives me a chance to talk about things that I wouldn't in posts for actresses, models and the like. To date(13 years) have done over 8,800 posts for actresses, dramas, movies, gravure models, J-Pop Groups, Idols and voice actresses. Brought up the final genre for one thing that has never had a post here are Animes and oddss are extremely slim it would ever happen. Out of all the woman I post about my favorite ones just may be voice actresses and have mentioned often how much I like them. While I do enjoy Animes guess I prefer posting about real people and there are enough posts or reviews about that genre already on the internet. At one time I used to view many of them and have bought such a huge amount of DVD boxsets but about five or so years ago stopped watching them. So was noticing a few weeks back there had to be fifteen series I had never viewed which all had a layer of dust on them(!), almost all are from over a decade ago and said to myself a goal is to begin watching those. Have made it through one 25 episode season and one big advantage of Animes is that the shows are usually just 23-25 minutes in length.

 One series I am really looking forward to is "Noein" and have read many positive things about that show. Though I won't be doing posts for Animes you can always leave comments about them or even Mangas as I enjoy those too. That series mentioned will be coming up next for the second choice for my catching up on Animes is "Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning" which is over twenty years old. Did begin the 25 episode series once and had been enjoying it but for some reason stopped after the ninth show. Did begin it again and while confusing at first because of so many characters plus it being set in two different time periods this has been a fine series but still have sixteen shows to go. I tend to prefer older Animes and ones that have a horror/sci-fi/mystery theme to them.

 Lot of times will discuss the leading actress in this section or perhaps someone else from the film but will skip that for this movie as I running behind schedule. Did say up next was going to be a 1947 movie starring Setsuko Hara and that is true but will it be the next thing to be reviewed? Would like to mix the posts up better between dramas and films, I stick with one for a few weeks and ignore the other. So may do some posts for a 1970's Sentai series but will try not to finish it immediately and sprinkle some movie reviews in the middle of them, don't know if it will work but that's the plan. Have reviewed about ten films the past two months and while not all have been huge winners there hasn't been a dud in the bunch. Out of them this may be the cream of the crop as I did enjoy this immensely and what a COOL film this was from the story, kind of cars that were driven and of course the lead actor Yuzo Kayama. There was never a dull moment and there was enough action without there being too much. Even though there was much less dialogue than most movies it was still very intense and will give this a very high recommendation, best film I have viewed in a while. Have no clue but wonder if there Hitman movie series, sure if there are they wouldn't be as good as this film but would be interested in checking them out.

 Part one of the review ended off with our quasi 'Hero' Toru Matsushita almost meeting his Maker as the sportscar he had been driving had been shot at by an assassin sent to Japan to eliminate Matsushita. This man's name was George Katakura and while he was Japanese it appeared he had been living somewhere else. In that first post Matsushita had helped a gang leader Hanada rob another gang who were smuggling gold bars worth 300 million yen into the bay of Izu. Matsushita was there to take care of the other gang's thugs and ended up killing eight of them as Hanada got his gold bars. With that crime it seemed Matsushita's life would go back to his normal ways but NO for the other unnamed gang wanted revenge on Hanada and especially Matsushita! George Katakura had been summoned to Japan to take care of all of those involved in the gold robbery, that wasn't known to Hanada or Matsushita for a while. So that's why at the end of the first review Matsushita had been shot at by Katakura from a helicopter. Katakura was the toughest opponent Matsushita has ever faced and at the end did either survive their final duel(?), let's get to what took place in the last ~40+ minutes.

 Though he was almost killed the thrill of that put some life back into Matsushita as once again an exciting night was spent with Akiko in her bed, the pair were still near Mount Fuji. Meanwhile George Katakura and his blond girlfriend have checked into the next room, naturally that worried Matsushita though think he prefers living in danger over leading a humdrum and safe life. I got the impression Katakura could have killed Matsushita a few times and he realized that too so wonder if the reason it didn't happen was because of some sort of 'honor(code)' between Hitmen? Katakura was by far his toughest opponent so if there was a showdown for once Matsushita wouldn't have the upper hand. Matsushita also had sent Katakura a 'message' that he wouldn't back down so easily as he had shot at Katakura's car but just took out a tire. A person who was beginning to worry Matsushita was his girl Akiko, she seemed scared to death of that man and as it turned out Matsushita's worries were right on the money. Don't think I brought it up yet and that's of the weapon that Katakura uses. It's an old German Mauser pistol that stopped production in 1937 but Katakura must have thought nothing topped it and kept his in mint condition, that was another cool aspect of this movie.

 Matsushita finally began to realize that Katakura's mission was to eliminate him for helping out on that gold bar robbery. Also being targeted was the man behind the plan to steal the gold bars worth over 300 million yen from a rival smuggling group. That man was Hanada who is the man talking on the phone above. In the first part of the review Hanada tried paying Matsushita for his part in the robbery with gold bars which was refused, Hanada now says he has the entire ten million yen fee plus wants the help of Matsushita for another job. Word spread quickly through the underworld that Hanada had pulled that gold bar robbery, now no one was willing to buy them. But worse for Hanada was that the gang who tried to smuggle the gold into Izu was now about to target Hanada and his main henchmen, could Matsushita once again try to protect him? Yes was the answer from Matsushita and visiting him was Hanada's top aide Konno, that's him in the brown suit above and right below. Konno did pay Matsushita the money owed for the robbery and Konno will also be recruited in a plan to take out Katakura.

 As mentioned our quasi 'hero' Matsushita was quite worried about Akiko's safety, he felt sure if Katakura could he would use her against Matsushita which will happen. But before that Matsushita had sent her back to Tokyo though of course one last night of rolling around in the hay was needed. That's in the second screenshot above, you can see that Matsushita had told Akiko this would be his last job. Matsushita is one ace Hitman but so isn't Katakura, for once Matsushita didn't feel as though he had the upper hand against someone. So by last job Matsushita felt either he would be killed or come out on top of Katakura, if so did Matsushita mean he would retire? Before she left for Tokyo from Mount Fuji Akiko had given Matsushita a key clue which is that George Katakura is an avid golfer. So on a course is where Matsushita will target his foe, for this attempt on Katakura he needed the help of Hanada's aide Konno plus Matsushita's old friend Fukazawa. While Katakura was out alone on the links Konno had been secretly trailing in the surrounding trees with two killer hounds, watching from a rooftop over 500 meters away were Matsushita and Fukazawa. The distance was too far for a rifle but Fukazawa had filmed the entire scene of when Konno released his killer dogs upon Katakura! And those dogs never stood a chance, they bit into the man a few times but were unable to bring him down, Katakura kept his cool and took out his Mauser. Calmly he shot and killed both dogs, Matsushita may have been aware that was going to happen so wanted the scene filmed to find any weakness. Think Matsushita did find one with how Katakura shot his pistol, there was something about how he paused after firing but we viewers don't know what Matsushita noticed.

 Also rubbed out at the same time was Hanada's top aide Konno, that's Hanada above in the bottom two screenshots after that incident. The man with his back to us was named Lee, it was his only scene in the movie. He had just arrived from China and he was the leader of the group that tried to smuggle the gold bars into Izu. Lee wanted his gold bars back and now but wasn't as ruthless as you would have thought. Hanada had felt he could have sold the gold bars for 300 million yen which is quite a bit of money but Lee said he could twice that amount! Hanada was currently getting zero though for the underground had blacklisted his group but Lee will show some mercy upon Hanada. Lee felt the gold bars he was shown were fake, if Hanada will give him the real gold bars his life will be spared plus Lee will even pay him 100 million yen! We didn't see the outcome of that scene, did Hanada turn over the gold bars to Lee? I have a feeling he did but had to realize there really was no way Lee would have let Hanada and his gang off so easily. In the first screenshot below the day after that meeting Hanada and his top aides had been killed by Katakura and sure it was right after Hanada had turned over the gold bars.

 Final segment, what took place in the last ten minutes are the above screenshots and the first six below. You knew what was shaping up to take place was a final showdown between Matsushita and Katakura, there was though it only lasted for a few seconds. In the second and third screenshots above once again Matsushita had enlisted the aid of his most trusted fiend Fukazawa. Matsushita knew going against Katakura meant he needed the best firepower he could get and wanted Fukazawa to create some Nanto bullets, those are so strong they can take out Elephants! Matsushita did try out one of those bullets and it certainly was powerful as it went through ten sheets of wood, the second screenshot. However a huge problem is how can Matsushita get the first shot in as Katakura was such a quick draw, that we will see shortly. Meanwhile back in Tokyo Akiko had been staying in her apartment waiting for Matsushita, she had received a knock at the door which is the fourth screenshot above. It was a mechanic saying he was returning Matsushita's sportscar and thought that had been destroyed in the first part of the review. It wasn't and is back in shape but it wasn't this man who delivered it, instead he had been sent by Katakura to kidnap Akiko and that scheme worked like a charm. Shortly after Matsushita arrived at the apartment the phone rang just after he entered. It was Katakura, if Matsushita wants Akiko back alive he said to meet him for a final showdown at the Ninth Harbor Pier in Yokohama.

 It was around midnight when this final scene began, it only only lasted for 3-4 minutes but the sun was rising in the final seconds. Katakura was alone and had Akiko with him for she was the perfect bait, he released her and watched aa Akiko dashed down the road to Matsushita's sportscar about a hundred feet away. Above you can see Katakura using his Mauser, it took only one shot to put down Akiko though at the time it appeared he was aiming at Matsushita and she had stepped in front of the bullet. Akiko was a bit delirious for a while and had mumbled on about living in New Guinea but that will never happen, was surprised she lived as long as she did. For the next five hours Matsushita just drove along the shore with Katakura close on his tail, don't think either had a plan on how to eliminate the other. With the sun beginning to rise Matsushita drove his car onto a beach and jumped out running towards the ocean. Katakura did the same thing and as you can see below were trying to aim a fatal blow at their opponent. Katakura shot first and it was a hit as Matsushita was down but not out!

 He rolled over and whatever weakness he learned about Katakura from that film was used here as Matsushita shot him in the chest, Katakura slowly sank to his knees and within a minute was dead. Matsushita crawled back to his sportscar and by now Akiko too was dead, would Matsushita be joining the pair? The film ended on the sixth screenshot below with Matsushita saying to himself "I Kill" which was his reason for living, we were left wondering did Matsushita survive this shootout? That ends this review and thanks if you read both parts, the screenshots below after the first six are ones featuring more of what too place in the second half of the movie. Which is one I enjoyed immensely and talked about why in the intro section, this was the top newish film I have seen in a long time. By newish mean one I had never viewed before and not sure what's up next. I thought Yuzo Kayama as Matsushita in the movie was so superb and he starred in so many films during the 1960's. So am thinking that I would like to check out more of his films so undecided what will be up next but Yuzo is actually known more for his music, at one time he had the best selling single in the history of Japan!