Chipmunk Cheeks and a Barrage of Bullets: Massacre Gun (1967)

Saburo

      Alvin, Theodore, and Simon are the most chipmunks to the majority of people you’d come across but there is another legendary chipmunk that chipmunk fanatics and Japanese film fanatics are very familiar with…Shishido Jo aka Jo the Ace. Though most famous for his films with Suzuki Seijun, he was a huge action star aside from his work with Suzuki. During his heyday, he was a major box office draw and icon of Nikkatsu’s yakuza films. Not all of his films from this period are easily available but an overlooked charmer is Hasebe Yasuharu’s…

Massacre Gun aka Minagoroshi no kenjû - A somber and quiet Akazama hitman Kuroda (played by Shishido) kills a woman for his boss. He regrets it but his brother Saburo (played by Okazaki Jiro, from the Stray Cat Rock series) can’t accept it. She loved Kuroda. Saburo gives up his boxing career. In retaliation, Boss Akazama has Saburo’s hands beaten to a pulp. Kuroda quits and forms his own gang, fracturing his friendship with Akazama’s right-hand man, Shirasaka. The Akazamas want revenge. Kuroda wants revenge. His jazz club and brother's life are at stake. The tension builds to an explosively nihilistic shootout.

To address the human chipmunk in the room, his insanely puffy cheeks were a consciously made choice on Shishido’s part. He wanted to play tough guys and gangsters so naturally, he had plastic surgery to get implants in his facial cheeks. Possibly, it was to appear like he was in a few fights. Either way, it worked. His career blew up after the surgery.

In the 1960s, Nikkatsu was notable for its run of yakuza films and other B movies. Their yakuza films were the ones that really revived Japan’s oldest film studio status (they also produced higher end films like The Pornographers and Pigs and Battleships). They had a set formula of a yakuza breaking away from a gang and the violent response that happens in the aftermath. There are several variations on the formula but fundamentally it’s the same plot each time. Suzuki Seijun’s Branded To Kill (1967) was the last straw and killed the successful run of yakuza flicks. Massacre Gun was released in the wake of Branded. It’s one of the final before Nikkatsu shifted gears into the Roman Porno.

When Suzuki used Jo, he was a living cartoon character with the sexual charisma of Casanova, Lord Byron, and Marlene Dietrich combined. Every woman wants to fuck him raw and keep on grinding until nothing is left. Confidence and masculinity radiate off him, in particular Suzuki’s Gates of Flesh (1964). Hasebe does not carry any of that over to Massacre. Shishido is everything he isn’t in Suzuki films. Shishido's dazzling here. He’s understated and somber with air of uncertainty and quietly conflicted rage.I haven't many performances where Shishido isn't over-the-top but Hasebe grounds him beautifully. It never feels forced. Jo makes the shift into lower key look easy.

From the start, Kuroda is not comfortable working for Boss Akazama. I’ve seen a few yakuza films and so many broken men living with regret to various degrees believability. Shishido is mainly known for his crazy marshmallow facial features more than his acting ability. Hasebe clearly didn’t want the macho hero. For Suzuki, a cartoonish over-the-top sensibility is necessary for it to work. Massacre is the extreme opposite of Branded. It’s still a B action movie but it’s as realistic as any of these kinds of gangster films would get.

Silent angst and nihilism are present throughout the film in every character, especially Kuroda. The stark black and white photography compliments the clear definitions of not good and bad, but bad and worse. Kuroda is a killer and Hasebe never lets you forget that. Fatalism was a huge aspect of Film Noir, those influences are worn with pride on its sleeve. Shishido by this point was an expert at being a lovable gangster with a loose code of honor. Quitting the Akazama is a deadly mistake but it’s the right choice. They fucked with his family and forced him into killing his woman (she’s not named at any point). Loyalty has a limit and this series of increasingly violent events test that loyalty. The only true friend in his life, Shirasaka, is stuck between 2 powerful people - his best friend Kuroda and his boss. In a fit of cowardice, he chooses the more convenient choice. The destruction of that friendship burrows that nihilism deeper into the film.

In this nameless city, there is no room for compromise. Love, family, and friendship are luxuries only fit for the strongest…until they get killed unexpectedly. An open space is an invitation to suspicion. Hasebe and Cinematographer Nagatsuka Kazue make beautiful use of wide open spaces. Kuroda and Saburo have few allies and even fewer places that feel safe. Their night club is usually seen before they open up business. It’s wide, spacious, and empty. Kuroda, Eiji (played by Fuji Tatsuya), and Saburo are framed at the extreme edges of the frame. The massive space is beautifully sparse but a clear indication of their place in the world. The nihilistic shootout is shot on a strangely sparse highway while Kuroda snipes from a distance, avoiding Shirasaka until he has to fight him. The bloody landscape is exceptional. The barriers, construction tower, and cars are placed with precision. Each piece we see is utilized to its fullest potential.

Nagatsuka loves showing off how desperate and alone the Kuroda clan is. It is not subtext. It is purely text. These moments are repetitive but necessary. Fulfilling both a narrative purpose and a practical purpose, the emptiness also shows how low budget the film. Nikkatsu was notorious for giving just enough money and barely enough time. As a result, Hasebe was forced to make bold stylistic flourishes. The plot is by-the-numbers but it looks and feels distinctive in a cluttered and nearly dead sub-genre.

Hasebe would go on to a bigger and better career. His style would evolve and explode into some truly wonderful and bizarre B movies for Nikkatsu. Shishido went on to become a very active and busy man with a strange career that will be revisited at a later date. 

  

Massacre Gun is available on streaming services, DVD, and Blu-Ray.