CHICAGO: "No Borders, No Limits: 1960s Nikkatsu Action Cinema" (April 5--May 23) at the Gene Siskel Film Center presents eight films from the vaults of Nikkatsu Studios, a crowd-pleasing outfit that in the '60s specialized in gaudy, glamorously stylized action flicks: yakuza films, police thrillers, youth-exploitation melodramas. Long shut out of serious discussion of Japanese cinema, the studio's output is largely unknown in the West outside of the work of the gonzo cult hero Seijun Suzuki (Branded to Kill, Tokyo Drifter, et al). The program eschews Suzuki's work in favor of what, at least for American audiences, are total obscurities with such titles as A Colt Is My Passport, Gangster V.I.P., Velvet Hustler, The Warped Ones, and the "Eastern Western" Plains Wanderer. Grady Hendrix describes this "liberating blast of hot cigarette smoke and cool, jet-set jazz" as "Japan’s version of the French New Wave, except bleaker, more stylish, and aiming primarily to entertain rather than enlighten.”
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