The Hoodlum Priest Films
Hooldlum Priest
Year: 1967
Director: Yasuda
Kimiyoshi
Rating: 6.0
Shintaro Katsu sheds his character of Zatoichi
to take on another wandering rascal. The Hoodlum Priest series only lasted
for two films and is not to be confused with his series titled the Hoodlum
Soldier. The Priest has a few similarities to Zatoichi - they like to gamble
and frolic with the occasional woman of the night, they clean up a town and
in the end they move on - but Zatoichi has a set of high morals and a weakness
in helping the underdog in trouble - but the Priest Ryuzen has no such compulsions
or ethics. It is all about him and his needs. At one point he does say "If
I can make money and by doing so help people then that is ok". But he is
always looking for an angle, a way to bed a woman that is pretty much rape
by any definition, a way to make money illegally. He is in other words a
Hoodlum! And seemingly a priest though that seems open to question. This
difference between him and Zatoichi may be why Zatoichi lasted for decades
and became an iconic series while this one lasted for two films. There is
only so much time you want to spend with him. But what time you spend is
fairly entertaining.
Ryuzen comes across a nearly deserted temple
with only an old harmless man living there in squalor and decides to move
in. He looks like a tramp with hair that could double for a rats nest and
a dirty face that hasn't seen soap and water for a while. But he has plans
once he gets the lay of the nearby town. He turns the temple into a gambling
parlor and a short time hotel in which men can peek at the goings-on inside.
For a price. This doesn't set so well with the local Yakuza who controls
the Red Light District and realizes he is losing money to this fly by night
operation. He sends a samurai to warn Ryuzen, then the law and then finally
his men. Ryuzen doesn't seem to take to the sword but is pretty good with
a knife, cudgel and judo. Still it is hard to take to a man who rapes a woman
who comes looking for help and then later tells her "Don't worry. I never
sleep with a woman more than once". Not exactly our lovable Zatoichi.
It is directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda, who
had directed a few of the Zatoichi films as well as a few of the Sleepy Eyes
of Death samurai series with Raizô Ichikawa. As two of the women in
the film are Ogawa Mayumi as Otatsu, the prostitute with a heart of cold
hard cash and Kubo Naoko as the mistress of the Yakuza head who sidetracks
Ryuzen with a glimpse of enough thigh that he gives up wrecking the place
and beds her instead. By force.
Hooldlum Priest and the Gold Mint
Year: 1968
Director: Ikehiro
Kazuo
Rating: 5.5
The Hoodlum Priest Ryuzen returns in the
second and last film of the short series. This one feels like it was done
in a hurry and a bit on the cheap coming in at only 79 minutes. As a note,
the Hoodlum Priest films have nothing to do with the Wicked Priest series
of films that star Shintaro Katsu's brother, Tomisaburo Wakayama, of Lone
Wolf and Cub fame. I wonder if anyone has ever tried to count the number
of people these two brothers killed in their films. You would need a super
computer. Ryuzen's bad behavior is toned down a bit in this second film -
he rapes no women - but in the first scene he does peep as oyster women change
their clothes - and later peeps as a woman takes a bath. So he hasn't turned
into a saint exactly and in fact he spends the film trying to connive people
out of their money - but those that deserve it.
A seeming conspiracy is going on that raises
Ryuzen's greedy antennae. The brother of the recently departed head of the
Mint is meeting up with the boss of the biggest yakuza gang in Edo and a
corrupt head of a temple. This intrigues Ryuzen and he begins to hang around
trying to pick up information but instead picks up the mistress of the Yakuza
head for a little touch and tickle while the boss is away. Later he comes
across a woman named Otsuya, flung across a rock in the sea with no memory
of who she is or how she got there. He finds a note on her that implies that
she is the illegal child of the former head of the Mint and thus the rightful
heir. The brother is sending bad guys to kill her. But there is more here
than seems apparent and Ryuzen sees an opportunity to make a bundle by helping
her get to Edo. He of course has to fight off attackers along the way.
There is not a lot of zing to the film
- and there seems to be no real effort to create period settings - most of
it taking place in inn rooms, outside and in compounds. Basic sets in every
period film. Shintaro again turns to a familiar director that he must have
been comfortable with - Kazuo Ikehiro - who like the previous director helmed
a few of the Zatoichi films and the Sleepy Eyes of Death films. Kayo Matsuo
who plays Otsuya was in her share of popular films - a Lone Wolf and Cub
film, Sleepy Eyes of Death and five Seijun Suzuki films.
