The Seven Faces of Bannai Tarao, Private Detective
                                                           
Director: Sadatsugu Matsuda/ Tsuneo Kobayashi
Year: 1956
Rating: 7.0
It is interesting to see how the police interact with a private detective in a Japanese film versus how they usually are in American films. Spade, Marlowe, Rockford always get the bum rush from the cops. Often threatened with losing their license or jail time if they interfere with an ongoing investigation. Not so in this film. The P.I. is welcomed, treated with respect, listened to and in fact the police even take his orders. Of course, this is not your run of the mill everyday detective. This is Bannai Tarao. He is kind of the Lone Ranger of private eyes. Showing up out of nowhere to help people and hand out justice. Sometimes with a gun. A man of multiple disguises, thus the Seven Faces. In the end he goes off into the sunset with nary a thanks. A man of mystery. There were eleven Bannai Tarao films from 1946 to 1960 starring Chiezō Kataoka and then two more with Akira Kobayashi in 1978.




Colt 45s are being smuggled into Japan and being used to commit crimes. Bannai intends to stop it. He has no client or legal justification to do so. He just does. After he stops three bank robbers in a chase, the cop asks, how do you always get here before we do? Because he is Bannai Tarao. He has seven specific personas - tough taxi driver with an eye patch, an old tired insurance salesman, a magician, a Chinese millionaire and a couple of others. Each has a fully furnished home. With trap floors.




In a nightclub, a man is shot dead and outside Bannai is in his taxi driver disguise and picks up the killer and takes him to one of his homes. The killer did it on orders from his Yakuza boss. Bannai wants to gain his confidence to find out about the smuggled guns. So he is hiding a killer from the cops, but the cops don't seem to mind. Rockford would be in big shit. A couple more murders take place, but it is the huge shootout at the end with Bannai against about 40 gang members that is the cherry in the drink. And here like American films, the guns never run out of bullets and the bad guys can't shoot straight.