What’s Happening on Hulu

This week, we’re serving up a killer selection of Japanese films from the ’50s and ’60s with Tokyo Crime Wave, our free festival on Hulu. This series of hard-boiled action movies and violent yakuza thrillers includes Toshio Masuda’s Rusty Knife and The Perfect Game, Umetsugu Inoue’s Black Lizard, Takumi Furukawa’s Cruel Gun Story, and a trio of films by genre master Seijun Suzuki: Tokyo Drifter, Branded to Kill, and Take Aim at the Police Van.

Also on offer is Takashi Nomura’s 1967 film A Colt Is My Passport, one of the last great mukokuseki (“borderless,” or internationalized) noirs produced by Nikkatsu, the oldest major film studio in Japan. This early vehicle for the great actor Joe Shishido follows the story of a hit man hired by the yakuza to kill the boss of a rival gang. Hailed as a “hot, blistering belch of action savagery and truck-stop heartbreak” by writer Chuck Stephens, this boisterous display of formal experimentation boasts stunning cinematography by Shigeyoshi Mine and a rollicking score by Harumi Ibe. You can watch the film below or over at Hulu—and remember, if you subscribe to Hulu for just $7.99 a month, you can see more than 900 Criterion films commercial-free, anytime.

from The Criterion Current http://ift.tt/29J0DsH