TOKYO — In my misguided youth in Tokyo I spent many an hour watching gang movies at the Toei Palace Gekijo in Shinjuku. I particularly enjoyed the ninkyo films starring the brooding, stoic Ken Takakura which usually followed one basic story line of good versus evil, set in the prewar era, usually ending when the pure-hearted hero — usually a gambler or a common laborer with uncommon dignity — exacts revenge for the murder of his oyabun by charging into the lair of the enemy gang and dispatching the boss and his gun-toting subordinates in a bloody, violent sword attack.
Never did the blood flow as much as the final 10 minutes of a Ken-san movie, the climactic battle filled with severed limbs, geysers of red shooting from a sliced carotid artery and other gore. I sat there taking it all in, drinking cans of Kirin Beer sold at the concession stand and eating dried eel, knees up against the seat in front of me to avoid the occasional rat running underneath. The all-night flicks, as it turned out, were a great place to meet girls, namely bar hostesses off work.
Every three months, there would be another ninkyo movie, in which Takakura is released from prison and returns home to combat yet another evil gang boss, or so it seemed. There was always a beautiful woman waiting in the wings, usually played by the beautiful Junko Fujii, but Ken-san never seemed to have time for her. He was too busy battling the bad guys or cooling his heels behind bars.
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