Japanese cinema carries with it a certain gravitas in the minds of many. It evokes images of great chivalry (Seven Samurai), dreams and heartbreak (Ikiru), honour and justice (Hara-Kiri) and the importance of family (Tokyo Story). Names such as Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujirō Ozu loom large over its history like Mt Fuji over Japan. This isn’t just the history of Japanese cinema, this is the history of Cinema itself. Auteurs from a country renowned for its artistry. As Martin Scorsese would say “This is cinema”.
Yeah, well you can forget all of that because The Executioner Collection is far from the greats of Japanese cinema, but unlike many of the aforementioned “greats”, these films are an absolute hoot.
The first film in the collection, The Executioner (1974) is the more serious of the two, but not by much. Your classic trio of misfits are brought together to pull off a job that will benefit Japan but needs to be outside of the law. So it falls to a lifelong Ninja (Chiba), an ex-cop turned assassin (Satô) and a womanising thief (Gō) to pull off the dangerous task of stopping an international drug smuggling ring that uses the diplomatic immunity of one of its members to circumvent border security. It’s Charlie’s Angels if it were Japanese and male.
What starts off as somewhat serious and quite playful soon swings between moments of goofy dad humour and acts of extreme violence, as our three main leads take their war to the villains. Chiba really shines during the action set pieces, often doing the stunts himself and thus allowing the camera to stay at the heart of the chaos. Just moments later we will find our intrepid team at a nightclub or office and they’ll either be peevish over their handler (Nakajima) or causing a certain level of buffoonery, and whilst this makes it sound like a mess, it actually works to a very entertaining degree.
WHETHER IT BE ON THE STREETS OF TOKYO OR THE INSIDE OF A WELL-TO-DO NIGHTCLUB, YOUR EYES ARE FILLED WITH EITHER FRENETIC ACTION, LAUGH OUT LOUD COMEDY AND ENOUGH COOL TO FILL A FREEZER.
Director Teruo Ishii (Blind Woman’s Curse, Horrors of Malformed Men) manages to get the most out of, what must have seemed on paper, a complete mishmash of story elements held together by flimsy characters, and brings a level of life to everything, whether it be on the streets of Tokyo or the inside of a well-to-do nightclub, your eyes are filled with either frenetic action, laugh out loud comedy and enough cool to fill a freezer.
Whilst not as much can be said for The Executioner II: Karate Inferno (also 1974), it being a rinse-repeat job of the first film but with less action and more comedy, what it lacks in fisticuffs it makes up for with jokes that pay off in delightful ways. For instance, there is a joke involving a hand, a table and some glue that we’ve seen a million times before, one that would usually just last a scene, but not here, this one goes on and on and on, each time causing a guffaw for just how ridiculous the scenario is and just how straight it is played by all concerned. I’d be lying if I said Karate Inferno was as good as the first, but it’s still really entertaining.
Also included in this Arrow release is an engaging yap track from Marc Walkow and Chris Poggiali on The Executioner, a lovely mini-doc on the King of Cool himself, Sonny Chiba (which features such names as Grady Hendrix, Tom Mes and Seiji from the band Guitar Wolf) and even a dub track for the first film.
It’s hard to put The Executioner Collection on a pedestal along with many other Arrow releases (Battles Without Honour and Humanity, Outlaw: Gangster VIP and the Seijun Suzuki collections to name but a few), but it does give us a look at a side of 70s Japanese cinema that we don’t get to see all too often. So if you have a penchant for the sillier side or have ever enjoyed any of the Lucky Stars films, you’ll be right at home with this lovely collection.
The Executioner Collection is out now on Arrow Video Blu-Ray
Ben’s Archive: The Executioner Collection (1974)
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