Koruto wa ore no pasupoto or A Colt is My Passport is this Sunday's matinee, thanks to the treasure trove that is Tucson's Casa Video (Tucson dotes on lovers of film and movie, and two institutions in particular consistently seduce me, Casa Video and the wonderful Loft Cinema---which will surface in future posts). But let's get to this too cool for school yakuza ("organized crime") film!
A Colt is My Passport has been called in homage to U.S. film noir, but this gem has a violent grace and style of its own. Our anti-hero is Shuji Kamimura played by legend Jo Shishido, with his driver and dreamy sidekick Shun (played by Jerry Fujio).
Kamimura is hired by one gang to make a hit on a rival mob boss, and while his graceful, tidy assasination is poetry to watch, the aftermath is a nasty bullet volley...
Early on in the film, the rival gangs team up to take down the assassins, and Kamimura and Shun are on the run. Ending up at a seedy trucker's motel, the Nagasikan, we finally meet the gorgeous Mina, a.k.a. Chitose Kobayashi, who works for the meanest hotel owner this side of the docks.
Mina grew up on a barge, ran away and was involved with the creepy yakuza boss Senzaki. She has seen it all and now survives by delivering nightly moxie to the greasy truckers and securing secret telephones and maritime connections for assassins. And like the installment of Bergen in 11 Harrowhouse, our lady Mina is the get-away driver. (Could this be a theme?) A Colt is My Passport is wicked fun and Kamimura is the kind of killer you want to hang with...
ALERT:
-The ending is brilliant.
That's all I am going to say. But it will blow your socks off.-
Finally! Not only is this film beautiful, but there is a wicked spaghetti western-esque soundtrack by Harumi Ibe...
...with the heartbreaking scene of our dreamy sidekick calming everyone's nerves (and inciting their libido), during his serenade at the hideout.
"There is just one person I want to meet,
When I go to the wharf,
Far off in the night sky---
Even if you became a twinkling star
That you'd wait only for me,
your star is a lonely little star..."
