The Shadow of Fear Film Review

Aka - Nerawareta Otoko

This rather nifty B film comes in at a sleek 68 minutes and was the debut for director Kô Nakahira (along with Koreyoshi Kurahara in his debut as well). Later in the same year he was to helm Crazed Fruit that became a standard bearer for the new wave Japanese film. The Shadow of Fear is a more modest film - a police procedural, social statement and shot in noirish black and white. It is of more interest in simply how it portrays a community than the crime of murder. Nearly the entire film takes place in a small dead-end alley way with small shops and bars along the way. The people who work in them all live above in small apartments. The camera often sits still at the end of the alley simply recording the goings and comings of the people who live and work there. It is Ginza long before it became the glittery neon commercial place it was to become. Everyone knows who their neighbors are and gossip is the currency they live by.

One afternoon they hear a woman screaming and they rush up the stairs to her shop - it is Tamiko pointing to the murdered body of her mother. Inspector Yasumoto (Taketushi Naito) soon shows up and in his investigation goes from shop to shop to interview the people. Pawn shops, clubs, tiny bars filled with scared people and sordid secrets. The killer has to be someone local they conclude. But why kill a middle-aged beautician. Suspicion begins to fall on Yoshio (Shinsuke Maki) an ex-con who killed someone in a gang rumble who is living with his sister and his girlfriend.

Once the neighborhood hears of his past, the gossip goes into overdrive making it impossible for him to find a job. So, he decides he better find the real killer. Nicely shot with at times some good camera movement and shots from high above looking down on the alley. A one-eyed man is found dead in the river and this gives Yoshio a clue. The Inspector is working towards a denouement as well but is keeping everything hush-hush. The finale is right out of classic cinema as Yoshio battered and bruised but with the killer lying next to him on the street looks up at all the neighbors surrounding him and keeps telling them, see I didn't kill her. I didn't kill her, I didn't kill her and their faces fall shamefully.