Black Tight Killers (Blu-Ray Review)

When someone mentions “pop art” and “the 1960s”, it's easy to leap to the American titans: Andy Warhol; Roy Lichtenstein; James Rosenquist. And yet, as with most artistic movements, the seeds sown in one continent took lift and bloomed in countless others. In Japan, artists like Keiichi Tanaami fused Western visions of psychedelic excess with images characteristic of the Japanese contemporary; the new wave of acid rock pressed against the searing scars left during World War II. All of those conflicting images come to a head in Black Tight Killers (1966), a James Bond-riff (second of those from Radiance in the past month) that opens on a warzone reimagined as a firework display, peppered by lasers and scored by rollicking jazz flecked with hints of surf rock. Groovy.

Fittingly, director Yasuharu Hasebe's influences can be traced to both sides of the Pacific. His early experiences with cinema came from American B movies and the Westerns of John Huston, while his professional career saw him working at Nikkatsu studios in Japan for eight years as an assistant director, most notably for prolific yakuza specialist Seijun Suzuki. Arguably his greatest contribution to cinematic canon—his work in creating the so-called “Violent pink” genre, which repurposed the sexual imagery of pink films for more bloody ends—came more than a decade after this, his directorial debut, but that same countercultural instinct shines through in his eye for off-the-wall visuals and the looseness of his direction.

The plot, what little there is, centres on war-time photographer turned unwitting spy Daisuke Honda (Akira Kobayashi). After meeting an attractive but troubled stewardess on his plane, he becomes increasingly embroiled in a mysterious plot involving multiple assassinations by flashy female ninjas with bouffant hair, and tall tales about long lost gold. For the most part, however, these criss-crossing allegiances and shadowy figures are an excuse for stylish action and wacky costuming. Indeed, the opening credit sequence plays like a freakier Bond intro, shot against the distorted block colour walls of a studio as women in matching outfits and brightly-coloured nails carry out a particularly nifty coordinated dance routine, Hasebe's adventurous camera moving from tight close ups on stretches of fabric to beneath a towering pair of legs. It's in these movements, motivated by an irrepressible beat, that Black Tight Killers finds a unique rhythm.

As for Honda, he's the sort of suave gentleman that looks as good topless as he does in a questionable white suit and ruffled pink shirt combo; an energy the film matches effortlessly, stuffed as it is with silly spy craft. There are crash zooms on suspicious characters, a half-seen fight shot from behind the jostling bottles of a delivery van, and a host of goofy gadgets; ninja chewing gum bullets, exploding golf balls, and razor blade measuring tape, to name a few. Perhaps the best example of Hasebe's slick style is an interrogation scene in which Honda, who has been wrongly accused of murder, is lit predominantly by one giant spotlight. As the camera moves from his pleading innocence to the interrogators, we find them cast in shadow, lit only by a far more menacing red light shining in from outside the prison bars. Even the room itself looks straight from a fashion magazine, cut into even squares, dotted in a mesmerising symmetry. When compared with his British inspiration, Honda might inevitably come second place—but James Bond wishes he had half of this visual cool.

Other sequences, like a blanket-based flirtation between Hondo and one of his requisite Bond girls, drag a little, speaking to a general listlessness that stops Black Tight Killers from being more than the sum of its parts. Worse still is the treatment of women, who, despite having agency as the cool titular assassins, are repeatedly reduced to sex objects, and nearly always die in service of that protagonist. There's still plenty to enjoy in the karate-chopping combat and high octane chicanery, but the pervasive sexism does sour the tone of what is otherwise a fun, pop art-adjacent spy thriller. It would seem that no matter what continent you're looking at, there's little more representative of the 1960s than ostensibly playful misogyny.

Special Features

• High-Definition digital transfer
• Uncompressed mono PCM audio
• Audio commentary by Jasper Sharp
• Archival interview with director Yasuharu Hasebe
• Trailer
• Optional English subtitles
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
• Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Japanese cinema expert Chris D.

Black Tight Killers released in the UK on February 26th courtesy of Radiance