The Fang in the Hole (1979) User Reviews

Low-budget surreal, supernatural pinku with a satirical moral twist.

[shanbhattacharya_ · 7/10 · 29 February 2020]

One of Suzuki's many lesser-known short fares, this movie looked like this was made for television in a shoestring budget. But Suzuki can work wonders with a bare-minimum set of a blank green wall and a hospital iron cot under a flat light. The story of a moral police detective falling for the girlfriend of a yakuza he had killed is a typical noir story. But under Suzuki's longtime collaborator and pinku legend Atsushi Yamatoya's screenplay this film takes many absurd, surreal turns towards the supernatural - all metaphorical of course. And they make a great cinematic experience. The detective starts to experience hallucinations about the ghost of the dead yakuza, believing the girlfriend is harboring his soul inside her - stories such as this can only make sense in a Seijun Suzuki film. Towards the end we are presented with a rather moral twist presented in a sardonic fashion.

It is difficult to categorize films like this - a mix of noir, mystery, comedy, romance, psychological horror all together. The uninitiated might consider it a complete mess, all over the place. But I personally enjoy little films with rough edges such as this where the director has squeezed everything out of his 45 minutes and a film production company's pocket change, to tell a complex story of human behavior. 6.5/10

Bullet with butterfly wings.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 10/10 · 30 August 2020]

Reading up about his credits after watching (and reviewing) all three Arrow box sets dedicated to his work, I was sad to read that in the 1970's auteur film maker Seijun Suzuki suffered getting blacklisted by the Japanese film industry for most of the decade. Spotting a viewing challenge focused on 70's cinema taking place,I decided to sink my fang into the limited credits of Suzuki from the decade.

The plot:

Learning of underworld killer Shida's location, police officer Ken Togura smashes into the building,and with one shot leaves Shida dead on the floor. Attending a hospital to confirm his death, Togura is told that there is no exit wound on Shida,with it having appeared to ricochet inside his head. As he takes a bullet from this news, Togura starts to fear he is seeing the spirit of Shida in the hospital.

View on the film:

Forced into having to accept the few scraps of offers to work on TV which came his way, and handed a bright lime coloured wall/backdrop which stays on screen for the majority of the film, director Seijun Suzuki fires a shot at the limitations of the TV Movie with a blistering opening sequence which rubs close to the stylisation of the Giallo genre, thanks to the brash red, overlapping bullet shot dissolves and manipulation of film speed that Suzuki drenches his murder set-piece in.

Making the hole backed by Kazuo Sugita's shimmering Ennio Morricone- inspired Jazzy score, Suzuki unveils a impressive inventiveness in emphasising the positives of the low budget, from the moving of set dressing as if it was on stage creating a theatrical, surrealist ambiance,to the long ghostly final panning shot,where the lone sound of rain is broken by demonic laughter.

Loading up Togura's paranoia, Yoshio Harada gives a gloriously flashy turn as Shida, whilst Makoto Fujita grinds Togura down,with thick Film Noir loner, (a major type of recurring character in Suzuki's works) dread at having fired a shot into the unknown.

Taking a bullet in a run time of 46 minutes,the screenplay by Atsushi Yamatoya & Takao Tsuchiya unload a compact Giallo mystery, powered by Togura's curiosity to unearth Shida's former riches,but a mistake which he can't stop slipping through his fingers, causing fangs of despair to be sunk into Togura.