Tokyo Knights (1961) Review

“Tokyo Knights” Japanese Theatrical Poster

Director: Seijun Suzuki
Cast: Koji Wada, Mayumi Shimizu, Yoko Minamida, Nobuo Kaneko, Yoshiko Nezu, Shoichi, Ozawa George, Luiker Naomi, Ozawa Moto, Matsuyama Hiroshi, Kamayatsu Yasuhiro, Kameyama Zenpei, Saga Hiroshi
Running Time: 87 min.

By Kelly Warner

Seijun Suzuki was a contract studio director for Nikkatsu. That meant that he made the films they told him to, with little time for pre-production, rewrites, or creative decision making. 1961 alone saw the release of six Suzuki directed films for Nikkatsu – SIX! Suzuki often complained about not getting better projects from the studio heads. Suzuki’s contemporary Shohei Imamura (Pigs and Battleships) had hit the scene at approximately the same time as Suzuki but Nikkatsu quickly started giving Imamura the prestige projects. This bothered Suzuki. Over time, he started to go rogue, adding style and weirdness to the otherwise cookie cutter screenplays in an attempt to turn a B-movie into a gonzo work of art. But despite his attempts to add his creative touch to otherwise subpar material, sometimes a bad script will only ever be a bad script.

In Tokyo Knights (aka The Lost Cufflinks), Koji Wada plays a teenage hero also named Koji. Everything about the film makes it appear to be a star vehicle for Wada: he charms the girls, he avenges wrongs, he sings, he dances, and he plays piano like a boss. He’s basically perfect and that’s one of my main issues with the film. At the start of the movie, Koji is just returning from school in America so that he may take over the family construction business following the death of his father. The company’s day-to-day will be run by Mr. Mishima (Nobuo Kaneko) until Koji is done with his school in Japan. On Koji’s his first day of Catholic school in Tokyo every student club seeks to have him join – because they instantly know that Koji’s good at everything he tries! Boxing club, fencing club, rugby club, you name it, Koji can do it (with this focus on the importance of school clubs I’m reminded by, of all things, Wes Anderson’s Rushmore). Koji settles on music club, which is overseen by a comic relief American music teacher who has this “aye yai yai” attitude in every scene.

Things don’t really get going until Koji visits the spot where his father died; a cliff face overlooking the ocean, where his company was doing new construction. He wonders how his dad could’ve accidentally fallen to his death there. Then he spots the strange cufflink in the grass at the cliff’s edge and soon learns that this cufflink is worn by all the upper echelon of the Tokutake Syndicate, the rivals to Koji’s family business. He makes it his mission to figure out the truth, all the while beginning to suspect that perhaps Mishima (who is now dating Koji’s mom) is involved with some backroom deals with the rival Tokutake group.

It’s like the writers vaguely remembered doing Hamlet in school, shrugged their shoulders and said, That’s a story. Mishima, who I guess is Claudius to Koji’s Hamlet, is the most interesting part in the film. Played by Nobuo Kaneko, he’s the only character that’s not 100% black or white, but operating somewhere in the gray area and moving in whatever direction suits him at the time. The rest of the cast is as obvious as can be, from the perfect hero to the scheming villain in Tokutake.

There comes a point half-way through the film where Tokyo Knights dips into absurdity when Tokutake’s goons storm Koji’s school. All the various school clubs come out to oppose the thugs and protect their school grounds. Kendo dudes chop necks, fencing kids swing swords, boxing boys throw punches, and the Tokutake goons tuck tail and run. It’s a fun, bizarre sequence, but it really feels out of place in a film that otherwise feels rooted in reality. Other fun (and odd) moments come up in the musical sections of the film, where Suzuki apparently encouraged his cast to ham it up as much as possible. A nightclub singer takes his microphone off the stage and begins singing directly to the camera. A dance scene, focusing on Koji and his girl Yuriko (Mayumi Shimizu), is overtaken by the extras dancing around them trying to draw the audience’s eye. These are the moments when you most feel Suzuki’s guiding hand at work and they’re the most out of place scenes in the film.

In the later section of the film, Koji briefly dons a Noh devil mask and sorts out justice as a teenage superhero. There are some nice visuals in these parts, but I’d ceased to care by then. On some level, I don’t think Suzuki cared much either. Seijun Suzuki was fond of saying how his movies made no money and made no sense. I personally never thought they ‘made no sense’ – they were just weird and surreal. You may not understand the why of some of his films but you get the how and the where. Tokyo Knights has some scene and editing structure that doesn’t make a lot of sense, though. The film language is a bit jumbled, as characters talk to people off-screen and we assume we know who they’re conversing with because of the previous shot, but we are wrong because it’s actually a third person that was not in the previous shot. Tokyo Knights feels like a halfhearted effort from the director.

When you go deep diving into the filmography of a favorite director, you’re hoping to uncover hidden gems that deserve to be considered alongside the artist’s fan favorites. But you run the risk of finding some true duds, too. I’ve now found my least favorite Seijun Suzuki film in Tokyo Knights, a colorful but dull crime movie featuring an obvious mystery and a hero who can do no wrong. Pity the poor fool who loved Branded to Kill and decided to watch Tokyo Knights as their second Suzuki film. The whiplash will be severe.

Kelly Warner’s Rating: 4/10