Okami (1955)
Wolf (1955)
DVD9 Custom | VIDEO_TS | NTSC 4:3 | 02:07:30 | 6,78 Gb
Audio: Japanese AC3 1.0 @ 224 Kbps | Subs: English (added), Japanese
Genre: Drama
DVD9 Custom | VIDEO_TS | NTSC 4:3 | 02:07:30 | 6,78 Gb
Audio: Japanese AC3 1.0 @ 224 Kbps | Subs: English (added), Japanese
Genre: Drama
Director: Kaneto Shindo
Stars: Nobuko Otowa, Jun Hamamura, Ichirô Sugai
Based on an actual event. A cash delivery truck is ambushed and robbed in a quiet highway. The perpetrators are neither gangsters nor habitual offenders. Instead they are good-hearted and law-abiding citizens. These five persons are rookie insurance salespersons who find it impossible to meet their quotas or get work elsewhere.
Filmed in a sober style and featuring eyepopping deep-focus photography by Takeo Ito, "Wolf" depicts a period of deep recession following the end of the American occupation of Japan. Shindo's austere use of dialogue and music makes this film a far cry from the sentimentality of his previous films like "Miniature" or "Ditch". Long stretches of wordless scenes make "Wolf" a foreshadow of the entirely wordless "The Naked Island", made just 5 years after.
IMDB
After the boom of the post-war black market economy, Japan fell into a recession. Our independent production company too, wasn't doing well.
Okami (1955)
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At that time, a cash delivery truck robbery was reported in the papers. [The incident occured on Mar 1, 1954, translator's note.] The robbers were swiftly arrested. Quite unexpectedly, they had been law-abiding citizens right until that robbery. It happened on a highway in Kanazawa Hakkei, Shinagawa Prefecture [outside Tokyo]. The robbers threatened the driver with rifle, then led the truck on a side road and took the cash. Now it seems so incredible that the highway had so little traffic. There were no witnesses to the incident. The robbers were five insurance salesmen, three men and two women. They were impoverished and robbed the cash truck out of desperation.
Okami (1955)
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I wanted to make a film out of this incident and wrote the scenario in a burst of excitement. But our production company no longer had the money to make a film. Yet no one opposed my decision to make this film. Our producers thought that we had to make it no matter what.
I was lucky to have a friend who was a veteran insurance salesman. From him I knew about these salesmen inside out and wrote the script accordingly. Apart from the 5 salesmen played by Jun Hamamura, Ichiro Sugai, Taiji Tonoyama, Nobuko Otowa and Sanae Takasugi, over 10 other salesmen were written in the script.
Okami (1955)
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The script was offered to Nikkatsu and was accepted readily. Nikkatsu was a new contender to Shochiku, Toho, Daiei, Toei and Shintoho. It was eager to take on innovative projects. The costume research was done and we were ready to start shooting. We were told to hold. A major stockholder of Nikkatsu was a life insurance company. They read the script and was shocked.
Okami (1955)
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We had to withdraw the collaboration and produce it at our company. This was rash because we had no money. But we were used to have no money, and thought that things would turn out well. Rashness and ignorance are fatal, but this "things would turn out well" was what kept our independent company going. But this time, we found ourselves standing before a wall.
Okami (1955)
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Two men who claimed to be union officials of an insurance company showed up. They offered to pay what we had spent so far on the project, provided that we cancelled it. They intimidated us in the name of the union. We were dying to have the money but there was no reason to take such money. Upon our rejection they showed their true colours. They said they may cause troubles during shooting. "Remember this." When I heard that I felt I must make Wolf. It was shortly before the days of the television. Not just the five lead actors but also the supporting cast were ready.
Okami (1955)
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"Independent filmmaking is not over yet." With that as motto, three directors collaborated on an omnibus film: Kozaburo Yoshimura, Satsuo Yamamoto and Tadashi Imai. The scripts of the Yoshimura and Imai portions were written by me. The lead actresses were Isuzu Yamada, Kyoko Kagawa and Nobuko Otowa. Everybody did this film for free, but that was just a drop in the ocean for the dying independent filmmaking movement.
Okami (1955)
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Thanks to the rescue of Takero Ito of Dokuritsu Eiga [Independent Films], we were able to start shooting. But just enough to get us started. The money was soon used up and we didn't even have money for our lunch boxes during location shooting. The five salesmen robbed out of desperation. We shot the film in the same mood.
In the film, the five robbers fled to Shomaru Pass (near Chichibu) and disbanded there. To shoot that scene the crew spent a night there. There was a disused mountain hut near the peak and we spent the night there. There was nothing to sleep on and no food. The assistant director and the script girl went down to Chichibu to do the shopping, and we had sukiyaki that night.
Okami (1955)
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We got drunk on beer and shochu. It was a brief rest during our strenuous shooting. Mr M. [Takashi Marumo] the art director danced for us naked, a feat he learnt at art school. We were all cheering. Sanae Takasugi was embarassed, she screamed, she laughed her head off with tears in her eyes.
With a beginning came an end. We fought hard to complete Wolf, and we borrowed heavily for it. To pay back the loans the film had to do well in the theatres. The film was released in the very few remaining independent theatres, but hardly anyone came. A theatre owner asked how come we made such a dark movie. Movies are entertainment, he declared. I kept my head low and stared at my shoes.
Okami (1955)
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A news reporter warned that I'd kill my film career by making this kind of films. Such words were always in my ears. But I had no intention to fall back. I'd go on the road I chose. I'd take the consequences for what I wanted to do.Kaneto Shindo,
Standing on the Abyss of Despair
Okami (1955)
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