Everything about this 1966 mob film from director Seijun Suzuki is cool, from the stylish look to the jazzy soundtrack to the powder blue suit and white bucks worn by it’s ‘hero’ Tetsuya ‘Phoenix Tetsu’ Hondo (Tetsuya Watari). It’s not just a fashion statement, either, but an important part of the film, especially in the way it celebrates gangster life, or at least the gangster life as we find it in movies. In the film, Tetsu is a young Yakuza hit man who decides to go join the head of his family in going legit, even if it means they’ll have to go toe-to-toe with every gun-carrying bad guy in Japan. When the tide of the gang war starts to go against him, though, the old leader tries to double-cross Testu, leading to an all out war that looks more like a Technicolor MGM musical than a bloody gangster film. There’s even a catchy song that will be rolling around in your head for days after you see the movie.
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