HIGH NOON FOR GANGSTERS (1961, aka GREED IN BROAD DAYLIGHT) is a relatively low-budget Japanese crime thriller that marked the directorial debut of the prolific Kinji Fukasaku who is better known these days for such films as BLACK LIZARD, THE GREEN SLIME, MESSAGE FROM SPACE, LEGEND OF THE EIGHT SAMURAI, VIRUS, and last year's BATTLE ROYALE, a controversial boxoffice hit in Japan about school kids forced to kill each other in a government-ordered survival contest.
Shooting in black-and-white and widescreen for HIGH NOON, Fukasaku seemed a lot less influenced by traditional Japanese films than by the French New Wave and such American auteurs as Stanley Kubrick (THE KILLING) and Sam Fuller (UNDERWORLD USA, CRIMSON KIMONO and his shot-in-Japan caper film, HOUSE OF BAMBOO). There's a lot of handheld camerawork and, in the second half, lots of outdoors location shooting, including an extended shootout/stand-off between two rival gangs in a sprawling abandoned shantytown. It's a real down-and-dirty crime film about lowlifes who are drawn together to execute a caper (the robbery of an armored truck carrying a U. S. army payroll) and then fall apart over the money.
What's unusual about this film, considering when it was shot, is the presence of three American characters, a white man and woman and a black man, all played by Americans. The two men speak both Japanese and English. When they first meet, they immediately trade racial slurs in English: 'I'm not working with any Sambo!' 'You poor white trash!' and they quickly come to blows before the Japanese ringleader (Tetsuro Tanba) breaks it up. The white actor is Robert Dunham, who will be recognized by fans of Japanese monster movies from his appearances in such films as MOTHRA, DAGORA, THE GREEN SLIME (also directed by Fukasaku) and GODZILLA VS. MEGALON. The black actor is Chico Roland, who made many films in Japan over a 20-year period, including Sonny Chiba's THE STREET FIGHTER, Seijun Suzuki's GATE OF FLESH, Kazui Nihonmatsu's GENOCIDE, and two by Koreyoshi Kurahara, THE WARPED ONES and BLACK SUN.
At one point Tanba and his brother, Sabu (the character name, not the Indian actor!), go to a brothel and 'buy' a half-breed girl (half-Japanese and half-black) to keep the black member of their team company. At this point, Tom, the black man, becomes a sympathetic character and becomes very protective of the girl, fighting off Sabu at one point when the latter tries to rape her. Tanba develops a great deal of respect for Tom. I don't believe I've ever seen a Japanese film, especially one this old, that deals with race relations in such an interesting and radical way. It's a fascinating film and it looks forward to Fukasaku's later Yakuza films.
