Take Aim at the Police Van

Take Aim at the Police Van ('十三号待避線'より　その護送車を狙え, Jūsangō taihisen yori: Sono gosōsha o nerae) is a 1960 Japanese film directed by Seijun Suzuki and starring Michitaro Mizushima.

Take Aim at the Police Van
Directed bySeijun Suzuki
Produced byRyoji Motegi
Written byShinichi Sekizawa
Kazuo Shimada (Story)
StarringMichitaro Mizushima
Mari Shiraki
Misako Watanabe
Shinsuke Ashida
Music byKoichi Kawabe
CinematographyShigeyoshi Mine
Edited byAkira Suzuki
Production
company
Release date
  • January 27, 1960 (1960-01-27)
Running time
79 minutes
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese

Production

The Nikkatsu Company conceived Take Aim at the Police Van as a borderless action film, a studio subgenre with internationalized characters and setting. Contract director Seijun Suzuki had previously worked mainly on pop song films, a youth subgenre in which the films were built around an already popular song, and yakuza films with an occasional film noir bent.[1] It also marked the beginning of his practice of co-writing his films.[2] Leading man Michitaro Mizushima had also starred in Suzuki's Underworld Beauty two years earlier. He was atypical of borderless action films by virtue of his age, forty-eight at the time, as they typically featured Nikkatsu's younger stars such as Yujiro Ishihara and Akira Kobayashi.[1]

Release

Take Aim at the Police Van was released in Japan by the Nikkatsu Company on January 27, 1960.[3] It was subsequently released in a five-film DVD box set, titled Nikkatsu Noir, in North America on August 25, 2009, under The Criterion Collection's Eclipse label. The set focuses on noir-themed Nikkatsu Action films and also includes I Am Waiting (1957), Rusty Knife (1958), Cruel Gun Story (1964) and A Colt Is My Passport (1967) with liner notes by film historian Chuck Stephens.[4]

The A.V. Club's Noel Murray felt the film holds up against contemporary Hollywood film noirs. Rating it less abstract than Seijun Suzuki's films of a few years later, he highlighted its vim and social candor and named it "[a testament] to how artists pumping out quickie exploitation product can often work in truths about their times that prestige filmmakers can't."[5]

References
  1. Stephens, Chuck (August 2009). "Eclipse Series 17: Nikkatsu Noir". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 2009-09-24.
  2. Weisser, Thomas (1998). "The Films of Seijun Suzuki". Asian Cult Cinema. Vital Books. 21: 47.
  3. １３号待避線より その護送車を狙え (in Japanese). Kinema Junpo Movie Database. Archived from the original on 2011-10-07. Retrieved 2009-09-10.
  4. Erickson, Glenn (August 2009). "Eclipse Series 17: Nikkatsu Noir". DVD Talk. Retrieved 2009-09-10.
  5. Murray, Noel (September 2009). "Eclipse Series 17: Nikkatsu Noir". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 2009-09-10.
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