The Killing Bottle
                      
Director:  Senkichi Taniguchi
Year: 1967
Rating: 7.0
Aka: Kokusai himitsu keisatsu: Zettai zetsumei

Aka - The International Secret Police: Driven to the Wall

I prefer my spy films to be serious - all shadows, betrayals and death. The closer they inch towards parody the less I take to them. Which is why I am not a real fan of the Roger Moore Bond films or the Dean Martin Matt Helm series. Give me films like The Spy Who Came in From the Cold or the Harry Palmer films before they slid into parody. This is the fifth and final film in the International Secret Police series and it seems unable to make up its mind whether to be just a snazzy spy film or a silly spy film. We get both. But it is saved by style - it looks great - strong pop colors, location shooting and a charismatic cast. It never slows down and is consistently entertaining. None of it is to be taken seriously though.



Tetsuya Mihashi who plays Agent Jiro Kitami in all five of the films is joined by fellow agent John Carter played by Nick Adams. This was Adams third appearance in a Toho production after Frankenstein vs. Baragon and Invasion of Astro-Monster. He had struck up a relationship with the alluring Kumi Mizuno while there and thankfully she is in this one. A few other Toho regulars are here as well - Akihiko Hirata and Makoto Satô. Satô had been in a couple of the other films in the series but as different characters.



The ZZZ organization is a professional assassin bureau headquartered in Hong Kong filled with ways and methods of death. Their latest client wants them to kill the Prime Minister of Buddenhall which sounds like it should be a town in the Lord of the Rings. He browses their various weapons and settles on a lotion that when released into oxygen will expand rapidly around your victim and turn to concrete. Of course, you need to have the victim in an enclosed area where they just can't run away. It seems it would be simpler to just shoot them but not as cool. And cool is what this film aspires to. The assassin roster consists of three men identically dressed with fedoras, their evil female supervisor (Annu Mari - whose face should be familiar if not her name. It stares out malevolently at us on the Branded to Kill dvd cover) who when not killing people is a dancer at The Club Grande. And then their number one killer is Hayata (Makoto Satô) who is a sneering psychopath who can seemingly jump like out of a wuxia film.  They all go to Japan where the Prime Minister is touring to fulfill their assignment.




Kitami and Carter try and stop them. Multiple times. A goofy but very cute woman (Kumi) keeps showing up asking if she can become their assistant but she is in fact the most competent of them. One time when it looks hopeless with three men closing in on them with guns, she picks up three L.P.s and slings them Frisbee style to incapacitate them. Another time she grabs Hayata by the arm only to have the arm come off. A good set piece which was filmed in a huge Entertainment Park called Dreamland ends it - that has since been shut down. It is light, it is frivolous but nice on the eyes.