In Koreyoshi Kurahara’s directorial debut, rebel matinee idol Yujiro Ishihara (fresh off the sensational Crazed Fruit) stars as a former boxer working as a restaurant manager, who saves a beautiful, suicidal club hostess (Mie Kitahara) trying to escape the clutches of her gangster employer. Featuring expressionist lighting and bold camera work, this was one of Nikkatsu’s early successes. —The Criterion Collection
Koreyoshi Kurahara (蔵原惟繕 Kurahara Koreyoshi?) (May 31, 1927 – December 28, 2002) was a Japanese screenwriter and director. He is perhaps best known for directing Antarctica (1983), which won several awards and was entered into the 34th Berlin International Film Festival. He also co-directed Hiroshima (1995) with Roger Spottiswoode, which was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries.
He was the nephew of literary critic Korehito Kurahara, and older brother of film director Koretsugu Kurahara. His son Jun Iwasaki, a former producer for Ishihara International Productions Inc., is currently secretary to politician Nobuteru Ishihara.
He was born in the city of Kuching, then part of the kingdom of Sarawak (now a state of Malaysia) on Borneo.
While a film student at Nihon University College of Art, he became a live-in student of Kajiro Yamamoto at the introduction of Ishirō Honda. Upon graduation in 1952 he joined Shochiku’s Kyoto studio and worked… read more
A crackling slice of late 50's Japanese noir with moody lighting and superb shot composition. "I Am Waiting" takes you back to an era of swinging cocktail lounges and the shady gangsters who ran them; of solitary figures whistling their way through lonely nights. If anything hampers the film's effectiveness, it's that the screenplay seems divided in two parts. The first portion is a humanistic love story about two damaged people trying to connect despite their isolation, while the second half of the film descends into streetlevel detective work and barroom fisticuffs. It's a shame that the film's love story takes a backseat during this more action-packed climax, since this is actually a genre film where the character relationships are the most compelling aspect.
Like _Collateral_, this film uses a coincidental connection between the female and male leads', and in both it is (to use words from Braden Valleneres' review) "convenient" and a bit "ridiculous", but whereas in the former (and other films with such connections) it is used to manipulate emotions and the narrative, here it is used to extend the theme of one's inability to escape the past and the associated regrets.
This is kind of a goofy flick. For one thing, the protagonist is entirely unbelievable as a vicious boxing champ with a killer jab. He spends the first half of the film meekly shuffling about with… read review