Somewhere out there, Yujiro Ishihara（石原裕次郎）is welcoming his older brother, Shintaro, and proposing a drink together with Tetsuya Watari（渡哲也）.
When I woke up this morning, I found out that Shintaro Ishihara（石原慎太郎）, author and former governor of Tokyo (1999-2012), had passed away at the age of 89. He was indeed the guy in charge of the area where I worked for most of my second go-around as an English teacher, and it was interesting realizing that he acted like a taciturn and often cranky Showa Era father during the Heisei Era. To be honest, I wasn't a fan of his opinions on history and people outside of Japan, but feel free to take a look at his Wikipedia article from the link above.
But that's all I'll say here. In any case, let me segue to his younger brother, Yujiro Ishihara. I'm going back to his early years when he was the young tough guy, an archetype of the people that he and his police squads used to pursue in the 70s and 80s when he was Da Chief in shows like "Taiyo ni Hoero"（太陽にほえろ）.
"Sabita Knife" (Rusty Knife) was a 1958 movie that Ishihara starred in, and it's been described in its own Wikipedia article as a Japanese film noir in which he plays an ex-con out for revenge against the gang responsible for the rape and subsequent suicide of his girlfriend. There's one scene above shown in the montage which he had a hungry face of hate and glee, something that I'd never seen before as an expression since I have been so accustomed to his older face of wisdom and calm in character as a chief of detectives.
The theme song by Ishihara, also known as "Sabita Knife" was apparently released a bit earlier in August 1957, so it's possible that the movie was produced around this song. Written by Shiro Hagiwara（萩原四朗）and composed by Kenroku Uehara（上原賢六）, "Sabita Knife" has that familiar combination of muted horns and mournful saxophones with the crooning voice of The Tough Guy, and I guess that sound might be the go-to arrangement for these songs fit for Japanese film noir: that tough march which seems to have a perpetual hangdog expression as the protagonist goes through an arduous ordeal in the search for justice or vengeance.
The song comes in at No. 7 within Ishihara's top-selling singles according to J-Wiki's list as it sold 1.75 million records.
Seeing how amiable and goofy Yoshizumi was on television, it was hard to believe that his father was the stern governor of Tokyo. Very different personalities.
ReplyDelete