Obscure Japanese Film #238Jiro Tamiya This Daiei production stars Jiro Tamiya as Joji Miyagi, who works as a flight attendant for a Japanese airline. One day, en route to San Francisco, he attracts the attention of a passenger, Saeko (Mariko Taka), the daughter of a banker. Saeko asks around about him and discovers that he has an unusual history, having apparently flitted from one random job to another. Although he also has a reputation as a ladies’ man, she is not put off and manages to engineer another meeting. A passionate love affair begins, but is there a darker side to his strange past? SPOILER BELOW Mariko Taka Based on one of those novels by Yukio Mishima which he knocked out for women’s magazines between more serious efforts, it was faithfully adapted for the screen by the not-especially-distinguished Kimiyuki Hasegawa. Mishima had actually based his protagonist very closely on a friend of his, Joji Abe (1937-2019), a yakuza who had worked for Japan Air Lines in the early 1960s before his background came to light and he was forced to leave. Abe later served time in prison before finally quitting the yakuza in 1981, subsequently becoming a writer himself and even acting in a few films. According to Persona: A Biography of Yukio Mishima by Naoki Inose and Hiroaki Sato, Mishima had become acquainted with Abe around 1953 when Abe, a member of the yakuza group Ando Gumi [yakuza-turned -actor Noboru Ando’s gang], was working as a bouncer at a gay bar. It was largely because he was impressed by Abe’s handling of a drunken gaijin that Mishima took up boxing when he thought he was ready. He decided he was unfit for the sport and gave it up after about a year, but he kept in touch with Abe. Mishima admired Abe for what he perceived as his manliness and his readiness to disregard the rules of convention and go his own way. Mishima also knew Jiro Tamiya, who read the book in proof form and pushed to play the part. (Tamiya’s little-known co-star Mariko Taka appeared in half a dozen films for Daiei between 1966-68 before moving to Toei, for whom she mainly did television before getting married in 1974, after which she promptly retired.) Although the film is a fairly lightweight entertainment whose appeal relies partly on the location shooting in San Francisco and Rio de Janeiro, it’s permeated by the author’s far-right ideology and its portrayal of foreigners feels xenophobic. Mariko Taka However, director Koji Shima and his DP Akira Uehara – who went on to shoot Man without a Map for Teshigahara and the recently-rediscovered The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (both 1968) – bring some real visual style to the material with subtle lighting and a strong sense of composition and colour. All in all, a more interesting film than I had expected and certainly an effective vehicle for its star, whose athleticism is also put to good use in a few action scenes. Tamiya with Eiko Taki Bonus trivia: According to Japanese Wikipedia, ‘At the age of 16, Joji Abe went to the Netherlands as a cameraman’s assistant, where he once got into a fistfight with Robert Mitchum over a prostitute.’ DVD at Amazon Japan Thanks to Coralsundy for the English subtitlesIf you enjoy this blog, feel free to buy me a coffee!
Dec 28, 2025 • Subscribe
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