Underworld Beauty

For many cineastes – especially outside of Japan – director Seijun Suzuki is the reluctant master of the yakuza genre. His international fame and notoriety is solely based on two wildly original, inventive, and subversive films, Tokyo Drifter (1966) and Branded to Kill (1967). The latter film was so over-the-top and mind-boggling in its relentless deconstruction and lampooning of yakuza film clichés, that Suzuki was subsequently fired from working for the infamous Nikkatsu film studio (who along with Daiei Studio cranked out the majority of the yakuza films during the genre’s heyday).¹

As these comments from Derek Hill suggest, Tōkyō nagaremono (Tokyo Drifter) and Koroshi no Rakuin (Branded to Kill) were films that, in narrative and technical aspects, indulged in outrageous stylistics and wittily subverted genre expectations. Ankokugai no bijo (Underworld Beauty, 1958), one of Suzuki’s earliest Nikkatsu films, may therefore come as a surprise if viewed after encountering the two seminal later works, as it is a relatively straightforward crime flick. The story centres on a criminal, Miyamoto (Mizushima Michitarō), recently out of prison after serving three years and determined to help his disabled friend and former partner in crime Mihara (Abe Tōru) by giving him three diamonds, which Miyamoto stashed before being imprisoned. Miyamoto’s boss Oyane (Ashida Shinsuke) sets up a deal to sell the precious stones, but things turn sour, resulting in Mihara’s death. After this, Miyamoto feels obliged to help Mihara’s wayward younger sister, Akiko (Shiraki Mari). However, the diamonds are still around and will cause more death. 

Underworld Beauty should not be dismissed as a minor Suzuki work because it of its familiar repentant criminal arc – partly because the film shows the development of Suzuki’s style and partly because a conventional genre film can be just as good, if not better, than a film deconstructing that genre. After all, one way for a director to effectively subvert a genre is to first gain experience making films in that genre. While Underworld Beauty is an expertly constructed crime film that anticipates elements of Suzuki’s later, more well-known yakuza features, it also plays around with genre elements. As Hill suggests: 

For sheer cinematic jazzing about and audaciousness, Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill are hard to top. But the roots of Suzuki’s prankishness and love of surrealism can easily be found in many of his earlier films, and it would be a shame for the viewer who perhaps knows only Suzuki’s most notorious offerings to bypass what could unfortunately be perceived as his safer, tamer productions.²

Hill goes on to cite Underworld Beauty – along with Kantō mushuku (Kanto Wanderer, 1963), and Irezumi ichidai (Tattooed Life, 1965) – as “prime examples of a director honing his craft, taking chances, and still making fantastic entertainment.”³ Suzuki’s output during this early period was extensive. As David Chute notes: “Twenty-five Suzuki movies were released in the seven years between his feature debut in 1956 and his acknowledged “breakthrough” work, Youth of the Beast (Yaju No Seishun), in 1963.”⁴ Chute labels the Suzuki films from 1956 to 1962 as “his apprentice films for Nikkatsu”⁵ and it gave the director ample time and opportunities to gain invaluable experience.

Before looking at the type of Suzuki film that Underworld Beauty turned out to be, it is instructive to jump forward and contrast it with Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill to see how the director’s later films defied convention. Chute starts with how Tokyo Drifter plays with technical film conventions: 

The weirdness of Tokyo Drifter isn’t all a matter of outré set design or fancy photographic footwork. Suzuki doesn’t just decorate the narrative, he shatters it. Aesthetic first principles like functionalism and expressiveness have been jettisoned. There are sudden ‘unrealistic’ theatrical eruptions, gusts of wind or flashes of lightning that have no clear ‘source.’ The landscape can suddenly turn snowy for no apparent reason except to beautify the sequence.⁶

Chute then summarises how Branded to Kill upends narrative expectations: 

Branded to Kill (Koroshi No Rakuin, ‘67) goes so far that Suzuki’s style seems to circle around and become rational again, or at least marginally representational. The film depicts, in narrative spasms, several days in the life of a hitman who is going bonkers. ‘Played straight,’ Branded to Kill would closely resemble the mad-dog chambara classic Sword of Doom (Kihachi Okamoto, ‘66), the Taxi Driver of samurai films. The protagonist is the mob’s ‘No. 3 Killer.’ The guy already has a few kinks (sniffing boiling rice makes him irresistibly horny), but the intensity of his desire to be top-ranked scrambles his brains. It makes sense that the movie is scrambled, too.⁷

Unlike the genre bending ‘shattering’ and ‘scrambling’ of these two films, Underworld Beauty is a more traditional – even old-fashioned – tale of a criminal with a conscience – sans ‘kinks’ – trying to make amends for his misdeeds. Suzuki’s style does not overwhelm or subvert things, instead taking a mostly straight and narrow path to characterisation, story and style, echoing the approach taken by classic Hollywood crime films, as Hill suggests:  

It doesn’t take much stretch of the imagination to think that Warner Bros. could have made something like it back in the 1930s or 1940s. Beautifully filmed in stark black & white, the film is a hard-boiled treat for those who like tough anti-heroes, equally tough dames, and action-packed violence that would have made Bogart or Cagney reach for their heaters. It may not be the best indicator of the yakuza genre (Tattooed Life is a better example of what the genre can offer), but it nevertheless serves as a wonderful introduction to Suzuki’s powerful storytelling.⁸

Indeed, Underworld Beauty even pays homage to such classic crime films, such as the climax echoing James Cagney’s last stand in White Heat (Raoul Walsh, 1949). 

Still, Underworld Beauty defies some expectations, particularly in the depiction of Akiko. While Mizushima’s black-clad Miyamoto is a tough, uncompromising presence at the centre of the story, Akiko could be the standout character. Tom Vick highlights “Mari Shiraki’s wildcat performance” as Akiko, remarking that: “Shiraki ping-ponged through Suzuki’s gangster potboiler with a ferocious sexual energy, playing a reckless hedonist in constant search of pleasure or oblivion.”⁹ Akiko is initially directionless and self-absorbed, and Miyamoto’s influence pushes her in a more proactive, purposeful direction. His guidance is given without a moralising speech, though – instead, we see Akiko transition from ‘reckless’ to resourceful and responsible, helping Miyamoto during the film’s action-packed climax. 

Jamie S. Rich believes this character relationship makes the film stand out from the crowd: 

What sets Underworld Beauty apart from standard crime films of the period is the clash of the old school gangster (Miyamoto) and the wild-child, idealistic teenager (Akiko)… Thus, the central conflict becomes whether or not Akiko can step up and act maturely. Can she and Miyamoto find common ground, and will it carry them through the classic crime-doesn’t-pay ending?¹⁰

While the assumption is that Akiko is the titular ‘Underworld Beauty’, the title could also refer to the diamonds – they are the alluring goods that promise wealth, but these objects of fascination lead to madness, with possession at any cost consuming and trapping the villains. The film shows this ‘beauty’ ironically, both in the behaviour of Miyamoto’s foes that seek the diamonds and in the depiction of the environments in which the conflicts over the stones play out. One of those obsessed with the diamonds is Akiko’s boyfriend Arita (Kondō Hiroshi), with the stones practically driving him to insanity; another is Oyane, who abandons any sense of obligation to Miyamoto (who did not tell on his boss while serving time in prison) in pursuit of the diamonds for himself. As for the settings, the film plunges us into the shadowy underworld at night in the opening sequence – we are in the literal ‘underworld’ of the sewers, where Miyamoto hides the diamonds and his pistol, his use of these tunnels recalling the locus of retreat for Orson Welles as Harry Lime in The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949). Daylight does not offer safety or escape from the underworld, however, as shown in an early rooftop confrontation between criminals that is brightly lit and dangerously exposed.

In addition to the ubiquitous yet elusive diamonds in Underworld Beauty, there are mannequins that feature prominently throughout. William Carroll notes that: “Akiko’s boyfriend is a mannequin designer, and the film makes effective use of his creations for playful compositions.”¹¹ The presence of the mannequins goes beyond stylistics, though. Arita has a studio where he sculpts the mannequins, at least one of which is based on Akiko. Perhaps the suggestion is that Arita views Akiko as an immobile, lifeless object of study instead of a living human being – although we are introduced to Arita sketching a nude picture of Akiko, he seems to have little to no intimate interest in her. The studio ends up being a place to hide the diamonds, first with the greedy Arita putting them in a drawer and later with Akiko concealing them under the breast of a clay mannequin sculpture before it enters a kiln. Later, Miyamoto steals this mannequin back from a shop in order to recover the diamonds and stashes the sculpture in the sewer tunnel seen in the opening. When Miyamoto returns to the sewer to get the diamonds again, he sees the mannequin lying broken, reminding him both of his obligation to rescue the kidnapped Akiko from Oyane in exchange for the diamonds and of the fate that could befall her. 

Visually, Suzuki and cinematographer Nakao Toshitarō make striking use of the widescreen frame. As William Carroll observes: “Underworld Beauty is Suzuki’s first in the anamorphic NikkatsuScope aspect ratio, presenting new possibilities of deep-space staging and subdividing frames.”¹² One example of inventive widescreen camerawork is a distant street shot when Miyamoto pursues and catches up with the errant Akiko, with the two characters isolated in the expansive frame. Another striking composition occurs later when mapping out the space in Oyane’s lair: one shot moves to a top-down angle, with his bedroom on the left side of the screen and a steam room next door on the right, the frame bisected diagonally so we can view two spaces of action simultaneously.

Visual moments like these are instances where Suzuki defies convention. What is meant by convention and how does it relate to Suzuki’s films? Tom Vick explains: 

The conventions of shot composition and editing in narrative cinema are designed to maintain the illusions Suzuki so enjoys dismantling. These conventions dictate, for instance, that the placement of the camera should follow the logic of human vision, and that every shot and cut should be motivated by the action on screen. In a general sense, we are supposed to look at narrative films as if we are in the room with the characters. That’s one of the things that makes the screen disappear and draws us into the story … Suzuki’s early films show clear signs of a director striving to be inventive by bucking against these rubrics.¹³

Vick notes a sign of this inventiveness from Underworld Beauty in the ‘distant street shot’ noted earlier:

A formal motif Suzuki often employed of juxtaposing extremely close shots with extremely long ones makes an early appearance… A close-up of the manic heroine being slapped in the face cuts to a long, dizzyingly high-angled shot that places the characters in a tiny box surrounded by surrounded by Tokyo’s chaotic urban architecture…¹⁴

While Underworld Beauty can be viewed by admirers of Suzuki Seijun as a stepping stone to the director’s later classics, it deserves to be seen as a significant film in its own right. It is a work that adheres to recognisable crime story conventions whilst pushing – but not exceeding – the boundaries of the genre. Suzuki bends, but does not break, the narrative. He ends up ‘jazzing about’ some familiar elements to give the film a vitality that is still felt decades later.

Ankokugai no bijo/Underworld Beauty (1958 Japan 87 mins)

Prod Co: Nikkatsu Prod: Nishioka Takashi Dir: Suzuki Seijun Scr: Saji Susumu Phot: Nakao Toshitarō Ed: Suzuki Akira Mus: Naozumi Yamamoto

Cast: Mizushima Michitarō, Shiraki Mari, Ashida Shinsuke, Abe Tōru, Kondō Hiroshi

Endnotes