Underworld Beauty


A fairly early film in the career of Seijun Suzuki, 1958’s Underworld Beauty never drifts far from the Hollywood noir entries that inspired it.  But as the Japanese director’s first film shot in widescreen, there’s some historical significance in watching what he does with his new toy.  Whether it’s a shadowy sewer, gaudy dance club or cramped office space, Suzuki seems to intuitively know just where his camera should be at all times…even with all that extra space to play with!

After release from prison, Miyamoto (Michitaro Mizushima) heads straight for the cache of stolen diamonds that put him there in the first place.  But his intentions are honorable: selling the goods and passing on the proceeds to his pal Mihara who was crippled on the job.  But Oyane (Shinsuke Ashida), who planned the heist, has an agenda of his own.  And so does his artistic-minded underling…and pretty much everyone else in the gang! So when the diamonds wind up in a corpse’s stomach it’s a gruesome competition to see who can get to the loot first.

That synopsis leaves out a major player in the film, Akiko (Mari Shiraki), Mihara’s free-spirited sister who winds up playing the wild card in this yakuza feeding frenzy. A woman “on the wrong path,” her hedonistic habits would have made the character untouchable in a Hollywood production.  But in Suzuki’s film, she’s thrust into the main role, literally digging her way out of the underworld into something approaching domestic bliss by film’s end. It makes up for the fact that our traditional protagonist is unrelentingly dull.

Most of the action is relegated to the finale where Miyamoto and Akiko dodge endless bullets in a cleverly choreographed warehouse scene. And there’s not much subtlety needed to interpret the ending, which hits the same ironic note as The Treasure of Sierra Madre.  But as a tweak on the noir genre, Suzuki’s film proves he’d more than earned his place at the table and was ready to up the ante.

Making its world Blu-ray premiere, the new 4K restoration featured on the Radiance’s 3000-copy limited edition is a black-and-white beauty up to par with their previous efforts.  Extras include another Suzuki directed short from 1959, Love Letters (40 min) plus commentary, new interview with critic Mizuki Kodama, trailer and liner notes.

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