Tokyo Drifter (1966) • Blu-ray [Criterion Collection]

After his gang disbands, a yakuza enforcer looks forward to life outside of organized crime but soon must become a drifter after his old rivals attempt to assassinate him.

The first time I saw Tokyo Drifter was with friends at the college arts cinema in the late 1980s. We’d heard it was an ultra-hip gangster movie from Japan. There was a 1960s revival going on so this fitted the bill beautifully with its pop-art aesthetic and cool suits. Of course, when it was made, it wasn’t retro at all but up-to-the-minute and cutting-edge. So much so that the director Seijun Suzuki was given a proper dressing down by the executives at Japan’s Nikkatsu studios. They thought it was incomprehensible!

After that first viewing I, too, remembered it as a psychedelic, freewheeling experience, but back then we didn’t have any method of re-watching to check. We all agreed it was great fun and held our attention. It left a lasting impression. For a while after, we’d greet each other with a somewhat cheesy exchange that had struck us as incongruous yet hip: “Hey, Shooting…