Paper short abstract:

This paper considers the ways that the genre of American film noir was adapted in "Nikkatsu Action" crime films such as Rusty Knife (1958), Branded to Kill (1967), and A Colt is My Passport (1967) to convey some of the faultlines of rapid socio-economic and cultural change in 1950s/1960s Japan.

Paper long abstract:

This paper considers the ways that the genre of American film noir was adapted in "Nikkatsu Action" crime films to capture and convey some of the faultlines of rapid socio-economic and cultural change in 1950s/1960s Japan. Although film and popular culture have been utilised as lenses through which to consider socio-economic change in this period in Japan, few works have specifically considered film noir.

The term film noir was initially used by French film critics with reference to wartime and postwar American urban crime films. These films were noted for their depictions of alienation conveyed through dark lighting, extreme camera angles and a focus on criminality; traits that have been read as a response to the disillusionment in American society in the aftermath of WWII.

During the 1960s Nikkatsu Studios released a series of noir-inspired urban crime films aimed at a teenage audience. Contrary to Toei Studio's conventional ninkyo eiga (chivalrous yakuza films) which underscored traditional social values by depicting a hero submitting to authority, the protagonists in these "Nikkatsu Action" films did not display loyalty to a group such as family, gang or company. Instead, they were depicted as entirely individualistic, akin to the protagonists of American film noir. In their depictions of lone outlaws that existed outside of the confinements of traditional Japanese society, the Nikkatsu films constituted "a rebellion against tradition dressed in the trappings of American film noir" (Vick, 2015, p. 23), appealing to the disillusionment felt by many young Japanese with regards to traditional social structures and their supposed obligations to it.

This paper examines how several "Nikkatsu Action" films, such as Rusty Knife (1958), Branded to Kill (1967), and A Colt is My Passport (1967) utilised conventions of film noir in order to subvert traditional Japanese conceptions of social obligation, thereby providing an unsettling representation of postwar Japanese society. Thus, these Nikkatsu noir films, just like other film from this period, provide a useful tool to reflect on the conditions of immediate postwar Japan.