I've recently been on a kick watching many of Arrow's Japanese gangster films, particularly the eight-part BATTLES WITHOUT HONOR & HUMANITY and the four-part FEMALE PRISONER SCORPION series. Having exhausted these titles, I thought I'd go back a decade to take a look at the black-and-white MASSACRE GUN, a vehicle for the hamster-cheeked Jo Shishido, the actor whose cheek implants give him a more than distinctive (i.e. rodent) look. This film is a lightly-plotted story about rival groups of gangsters wrestling for control of a popular gym and the bloodshed that ensues. It boasts fine photography and a series of violent, stylish action set-pieces in which the bullets fly and actors die heroically. Shishido and his peers give the usual tough-guy performances and the story has a light, comic-book feel to it to contrast the heaviness of an auteurish approach like Kurosawa's.
Review of Massacre Gun
