Gokuaku bôzu: Nenbutsu sandangiri

Wicked Priest #4 is fun. Starring our friend from the Baby cart series, the film is easy enough to follow without having seen the first three wicked priest films. Wakayama plays Shinkai, a priest who cheats, gambles, drinks and can't stay away from the women, but seems to get the broader important stuff right (in this film, he fights to improve the wages of impoverished coal workers). If you're tuning in for Bunta Sugawara, however, be forewarned that his role is pretty small, and he doesn't even show up until the last 30 minutes. I haven't seen the other Wicked Priest films, but I assume Bunta is left over from one of them, as they don't explain his relationship to Shinkai at all. Towards the end of the film, Wakayama basically turns into Zatoichi, whose character he has resembled all along. The blind fighting style he ends up developing mirrors Zatoichi's, and seeing as this film came eight years after Zatoichi showed up, it is likely this film was an attempt to cash in on the popularity of that series (after all, Wakayama starred in several of them himself). By the way, the roaming samurai elements almost completely obscure the minor Yakuza subplot. This is no Fukasaku film.

The series moves along at a steady but unremarkable pace. Tomisaburo Wakayama returns as the morally challenged priest who can't seem to keep his hands off of women or gambling dice. As with the third installment, the resemblances to the Zatoichi series keep growing.

Shinkai arrives in his hometown to finally give his mother a decent Buddhist memorial service, twenty years after her death. During a stopover in a gambling den, Shinkai runs into his childhood friend, now a yakusa gunman, in a dispute with the local crime boss. Shinkai rescues him but the friend is resentful and feels his manhood has been insulted by Shinkai. Later Shinkai find the local river workers being horribly exploited by the local crime bosses and he forces them to give all the workers pay raises. This doesn't fit in their plans so the bosses hire the gunman and few others to kill Shinkai. Meanwhile Shinkai meets a "Wicked Nun" who can fight and swindle with the best of them.

The whole production is cheap and seems rushed but that does not prevent the able crew to have a few great moments. As with the last installment, the plot devices and poor continuity give the film more of a TV feel and if you are familiar with Japanese television from this period you'll know what I mean. Towards the end, Shinkai is blinded by an explosion and he quickly learns to fight like Zatoichi. Wakayama is a great actor and he keeps the movie entertaining but it's very derivative of his brother's work.

Fun but uneven.