The Eagle and the Hawk
Director: Inoue
Umetsugu
Year: 1957
Rating:
6.0
From 1967 to 1971
Inoue Umetsugu directed seventeen films for the Shaw Brothers - a few that
are considered classics such as Hong Kong Nocturne and Hong Kong Rhapsody
- both musicals - but he also made some fun spy films like Operation Lipstick
and The Brain Stealers. He had a wonderfully light colorful stylish touch
that gave his films a contemporary snazzy look and his actresses a sleek
stunning appearance. Before the Shaw Brothers though he was having a successful
career in Japan. I don't know why he made the jump to Hong Kong but even
while directing at Shaw for those years, he continued to travel back to Japan
to direct films and after leaving Shaw he directed in Japan until 1987. I
have wanted to watch his Japanese films - nearly 100 of them - but so far
this is only the second that I have come across. It is quite different than
his future Shaw films - a crime drama - that is quite good but for a romance
that streaks through it like stone in your shoe.
A drunken seaman leaves a small bar and
begins to wobble back to his ship. He hears someone whistling behind him
and initially looks puzzled and as the whistle follows in his footsteps he
begins to run in terror, the whistle always right behind him. Till it catches
him and puts a knife into his back. We never see the killer - just the long
slim legs in blue jeans. The ship the drunk was heading back for is a rusty
tanker that is captained by his old friend Onizama (Hiroshi Nihon'yanagi)
and the drunk's son Goro (Hiroyuki Nagato) is first mate. Two men join the
crew right before it casts off. Both in jeans with thin legs. Two women stowaway
on the ship - the Captain's daughter Akiko (Ruriko Asaoka) and a woman Akemi
(Yumeji Tsukioka - Umetsugu's wife) in love with Senkichi (Yûjirô
Ishihara), one of the two men. The other one is played by Rentarô Mikuni.
Clearly trouble is brewing.
Much of the film is just the men getting
up to whatever men on ships get up to - playing cards, drinking, fighting
and attempting to rape Akeemi (by none other than Tomio Aoki - one of Ozu's
favorite child actors going back to the silent days). Love blooms between
Akiko and Senkichi that is as shallow as a puddle. Why does she fall in love?
Because he has that bad boy look and plays a mean ukelele. I don't know where
she thought she was going because she brought along a stunning wardrobe that
spelled trouble. These are sweaty lonely men at work on a boat. Stay in your
room. Well-made film as the tension and reveals begin to mount. And then
a storm hits. And someone is whistling that same tune.
In color.
