{"id":16484,"date":"2017-08-09T23:31:38","date_gmt":"2017-08-10T03:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=16484"},"modified":"2018-09-17T00:25:30","modified_gmt":"2018-09-17T04:25:30","slug":"br-crimson-kimono-the-1959","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=16484","title":{"rendered":"BR: Crimson Kimono, The (1959)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Film<\/strong>: Excellent<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: Excellent<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>: Very Good<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong> Twilight Time<\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong>\u00a0All<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0 July, 2017<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0 Film Noir \/ Crime<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0The tight friendship between two detectives is almost torn apart by a sexy murder witness and killer wandering the environs of Little Tokyo.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong> Isolated Mono Music Track \/ Two 2009 Featurettes: \u201cSam Fuller: Storyteller\u201d (24:13) + \u201cCurtis Hanson: The Culture of The Crimson Kimono\u201d (9:22) \/\u00a0 3 Theatrical Trailers \/ 8-page colour booklet with liner notes by film historian Julie Kirgo \/ Limited to 3000 copies \/ Available exclusively from Screen Archives Entertainment<\/a> and www.twilighttimemovies.com<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

During the 1950s Sam Fuller managed to put his stylistic and idiosyncratic imprimatur on pictures for the major studios, often in big gorgeous CinemaScope productions for Fox (Hell and High Water<\/a><\/strong>, the Japan-shot House of Bamboo<\/a><\/strong>), but the succession of almost yearly films became a trickle, ultimately forcing the writer-producer-director and once in a blue moon actor to TV and later Europe, but in 1959 Fuller produced a pair of back-to-back films, Verboten!<\/strong> set in postwar Germany, and The Crimson Kimono<\/strong>, where he revisited Japanese culture after it had migrated to Los Angeles and settled into a tight community.<\/p>\n

Kimono<\/strong> is a remarkable film that encapsulates all of Fuller\u2019s rule-breaking storytelling and bag of technical tricks, and features a rare leading role for an Asian actor. Seemingly plucked from obscurity, James Shigeta is Det. Kojaku, a Korean War vet who shares a pad with his war buddy and soul brother Det. Bancroft (Glenn Corbett). They don\u2019t need dames, vacations, or friends, because they\u2019ve got each other and walls filled with wartime honors and memorabilia to feel all fuzzy & warm, and Fuller\u2019s rock solid bromance becomes threatened when the devotion of a witness they\u2019re protecting in a murder mystery realigns her heartbeats from Bancroft to Kojaku, setting off an identity crisis within the latter that\u2019s forced by internal fears than external encounters with racism.<\/p>\n

For a Fuller film, the mid-film romance between pretty Christine (Victoria Shaw) and Kojaku has some genuine tender moments, quite atypical for a director who nevertheless starts off his films with an explosive scene. After a Main Title sequence and location titles that zoom towards us like tabloid banners, massive close-ups of a grinning burlesque dancer fill the screen, supported only by bawdy music. Soon after the dance a gialloesque cloaked & gloved killer fires at the temptress, and after running and jiggling into street traffic, she\u2019s gunned down in cold blood.<\/p>\n

Anna Lee, best known for playing General Hospital<\/strong>\u2019s wise but even tempered matriarch Lila Quartermaine from 1978-2003, plays a boozing, discretely self-loathing painter who\u2019s perfectly content being blotto most of the time, extolling wisdom to cops and burgeoning artists like Christine. It\u2019s one her best roles and must have been one of her favourites, playing an eccentric bigmouth who starts the day with a can of wine stirred with a paintbrush, and adds splashes of wine to her canvases without caring for the tenants below (who must surely loathe the boozy leakage coming through the floor boards).<\/p>\n

Fuller\u2019s story does make sense \u2013 it\u2019s ostensibly a murder mystery with giallo elements, including leaving the killer\u2019s identity to the very end \u2013 but not unlike Fritz Lang\u2019s The Big Heat<\/a><\/strong> (1953), this is a perfectly cut, shot, written, acted, and directed entry, goosed with Fuller\u2019s own loony sensibilities. Edits range from smash cuts and jump cuts to razor-sharp leaps as two characters in different locales are joined as they\u2019re performing the same action. Much of the story leaps with the power of a sword slash, and Fuller\u2019s camera is constantly moving, sometimes behind objects and breaking the third wall.<\/p>\n

Woven between chases on foot and maneuverings through gritty bits of Little Tokyo are slices of Japanese-American culture, including a pivotal kendo match, and casting Asian actors in Asian parts, making Kimono<\/strong> a refreshing correction for Hollywood\u2019s use of makeup on white actors for pivotal primary and secondary roles, and stuffing Asian actors in the background. Kojaku\u2019s also an equal to Charlie, and is held in high respect by the department.<\/p>\n

The big mystery of who killed the dancer and why holds up to the end, and the finale has the two men plus the girl tracking the killer through a street parade at night. While the end scene could be read as positive, it\u2019s clear Kojaku\u2019s buddy-buddy relationship with Bancroft is severely damaged, and their partnership on the force may well be over.<\/p>\n

Twilight Time\u2019s disc sports a fine transfer that flatters Sam Leavitt\u2019s striking cinematography but also reveals some of Fuller\u2019s weird shots. In Anna Lee\u2019s first scene as blowhard Mac, there\u2019s a cut to a closer shot that\u2019s really a blow-up of the same footage, plus extra grain and contrast \u2013 perhaps a sign Fuller was tight on time, and in the end felt he needed to cheat a little to get an extra albeit contrived close-up.<\/p>\n

Harry Sukman\u2019s score is isolated on a separate mono track, and Julie Kirgo\u2019s booklet fills in some spots not covered in the bonus interviews from Sony\u2019s 2009 DVD set The Sam Fuller Collection, with Fuller\u2019s widow Christa, daughter Samantha, and filmmakers Curtis Hanson and Tim Robbins. Not unlike Robert Fischer\u2019s feature-length doc that accompanied Olive\u2019s release of Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street <\/strong><\/a>(1972), there\u2019s discussions of Fuller\u2019s early years as a crime reporter, WWII cameraman, his themes and style, and where Kimono<\/strong> fits within his career as a rule-breaker. Shock Corridor<\/strong> (1963) and The Naked Kiss<\/strong> (1964) would soon follow, but Kimono<\/strong> serves as a portent of the stylistic risks he\u2019d take with film techniques and storytelling.<\/p>\n

James Shigeta never evolved into a star with lengthy staying power but for a film career debut, this was a great springboard that was followed by major roles in Bridge to the Sun <\/strong>(1961), Flower Drum Song <\/strong>(1961), the ill-fated Lost Horizon<\/a> <\/strong>(1973), and The Yakuza<\/a><\/strong> (1974).\u00a0 Glenn Corbett\u2019s film debut was followed by the cult film Homicidal<\/a><\/strong> (1961), a slew of TV work, supporting roles in westerns, and reteaming with Fuller in Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street <\/strong>(1972).<\/p>\n

Victoria Shaw may have looked a bit too old to be a struggling artist in university, but it\u2019s a decent role in a fairly brief film career that includes The Eddy Duchin Story<\/a><\/strong> (1956), Edge of Eternity<\/a><\/strong> (1959), and Westworld<\/strong> (1973).<\/p>\n

TT\u2019s separate releases of Kimono<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Underworld<\/strong> and featured isolated music tracks, whereas Indicator\u2019s 2018 Blu-ray version of the Sony set lacks these features, but includes extras from the set as well as new material. Samuel Fuller at Columbia: 1937-1961 includes the Fuller-scripted It Happened in Hollywood <\/strong>(1937), Advebture in Sahara<\/strong> (1938), Power of the Press <\/strong>(1943), Scandal Sheet <\/strong>(1952), The Crimson Kimono<\/strong> (1959), and Underworld U.S.A.<\/strong><\/a> (1961).<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2017 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a> — IMDB<\/a> \u00a0— \u00a0Soundtrack Album<\/a> —\u00a0Composer Filmography<\/a>
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\nVendor Search Links:<\/strong>
\nAmazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

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