Tokyo Drifter: Criterion Collection

Seijun Suzuki made his name in Japan with hard-boiled B-crime films during the 1950’s. By the 1960’s, he took traditional Yakuza stories and juxtaposed them with an extreme Andy Warhol-esque pop art look that gleefully pushed genre conventions. He... 

Gate of Flesh

Based on the novel by Taijiro Tamura, Seijun Suzuki’s Gate of Flesh (1964) explores the harsh world of post-World War II prostitutes in Tokyo, in particular, a group whose already tenuous relationship with each other is put to the test when a wild,... 

Branded to Kill: Criterion Collection

Seijun Suzuki cut his teeth on pop musicals, comedies, action and war films. Over time, he became impatient with his status as a B-movie director while some of his peers were making A movies. Often stuck with substandard screenplays, the frustrated director... 

Youth of the Beast

Youth of the Beast (1963) starts off in sobering black and white film stock as serious-looking police detectives investigate a double suicide. Cut suddenly to colour film stock of two girls laughing hysterically with frenetic jazz music crashing in. We’ve... 

Underworld Beauty

In North America, Japanese filmmaker Seijun Suzuki is virtually unknown to mainstream audiences. However, to fans of Japanese cinema, he is regarded as one of the masters of the gangster genre. In the 1950s, he was a journeyman director making crime thrillers...