The Man with a Shotgun Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.5

The Man with a Shotgun Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 30, 2018

Note: This film is available as part of Seijun Suzuki: The Early Years, Vol. 2 - Border Crossings: The Crime and Action Movies .

Arrow is continuing to give Japanese cinema fans a field day with new sets devoted to the genre offerings of Seijun Suzuki. Almost a year ago now, Arrow released Seijun Suzuki's The Taisho Trilogy, a trio of frankly often near hallucinatory efforts that initially had their theatrical exhibitions in the 1980s and 1990s. Arrow has now reached further back into what might be thought of as the formative years of Suzuki, offering both Seijun Suzuki: The Early Years, Vol. 1 - Seijun Rising: The Youth Movies (which Arrow has unfortunately been unable to provide a screener for as of the writing of this review) and Seijun Suzuki: The Early Years, Vol. 2 - Border Crossings: The Crime and Action Movies. This second volume obviously includes the sobriquet “Crime and Action Movies”, and as fans of Suzuki will know, at least some of his now considerable reputation was built upon yakuza outings, but as the rest of that subtitle announces, probably all five films in this set could be seen as crossing borders, i.e., incorporating the kind of crazy quilt combo platter of idioms and approaches that became a Nikkatsu hallmark, namely the so-called “borderless action” film.

Of all the films in this second volume of early Seijun Suzuki offerings, The Man With the Shotgun is arguably the most outré, at least in some of its presentational aspects if not in its basic, yakuza-lite mixed with a Death Wish-lite revenge angle, story line. The film is almost wordless in its early going, documenting a series of patently weird vignettes involving, well, a man with a shotgun named Ryoki (Hideaki Nitani). The first scene offers a brief interchange (wordless, at least in terms of any contributions from Ryoki's) between an amorous man and a frightened young woman, with Ryoki aiming his shotgun at the lecher’s face in order to make it clear there won’t be any further advances. One brief moment of dialogue occurs next when Ryoki, dropped off in a near jungle setting, is warned not to go any further by a concerned passerby. Of course Ryoki doesn’t pay any attention, which is when he’s set upon by three ruffians. In the first of several just flat out weird fight sequences, the three initially beat the living you know what out of Ryoki, only to have Ryoki return the favor, and then just move on as if nothing had happened. A few minutes later, Ryoki once again seems to have been attacked, more or less anyway, by another guy who cuts a rope bridge across a river just as Ryoki is crossing on it. The very next cut shows Ryoki already drying his clothes, lounging by the river in his skivvies, and shooting at anyone who dares to bother his attempts to “nap”. What exactly is going on here?

The Man With the Shotgun is one of those films where men seem to default to brawling violently upon meeting each other, only to then let bygones be bygones, forging strong, “manly” (in the words of the film’s kind of endearing theme song) bonds. Ryoki of course is not the hunter he keeps claiming he is, especially once he ends up in a mill town where it turns out he might be able to help bring order to the place (those three aforementioned ruffians were simply trying to check out how tough — i.e., “manly” — Ryoki was). That brings Ryoki into contact with a whole criminal element working secretly at the mill, though there’s more to Ryoki’s story, of course (including perhaps the only occasion of a putative “western” star stopping in his tracks to deliver an accordion solo).

There's an undeniable goofiness to a lot The Man With a Shotgun, but it's also evident that Suzuki is gently winking at the audience, delivering a kinda sorta western that features something like a Man With (Virtually) No Name in a modern day (i.e., circa 1961) setting. There's the expected love angle inserted (none too artfully, some might argue), and a number of action sequences, but the film also features some rather beautiful location work in color.

The Man with a Shotgun Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Man With a Shotgun is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Arrow's insert booklet only contains the following pretty generic verbiage about all five films in this set:

The films in this collection were remastered in high definition by Nikkatsu and delivered to Arrow Films. Additional restoration and grading work was completed at R3store Studios in London. Each film is presented in its original aspect ratio with its original mono audio.

Of the two color films in this set (the other being Tokyo Knights ), The Man With a Shotgun offers better saturation and an overall more accurate looking palette. Suzuki utilizes the widescreen framing rather nicely throughout this often scenic adventure, though fine detail levels understandably vary depending on whether huge vistas or extreme close- ups are being employed. There are a couple of kind of odd and very brief looking anomalies here. The first occurs right after the Nikkatsu masthead, as the screen fades to black, and there are a couple of very brief horizontal flashes that almost look like old tracking problems from the VHS era or perhaps some kind of electrostatic discharge. Later, at around 10:57, there's a somewhat peculiar looking anamorphic shift where things look just slightly warped for a second (this also occurs in another of the 'Scope presentations and may indicate some malfunctioning lens that Nikkatsu had back in the day). Flesh tones can look just slightly ruddy at times, but grain resolves naturally throughout the presentation.

The Man with a Shotgun Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Man With a Shotgun features another generally nice sounding LPCM Mono track in the original Japanese. As with Tokyo Knights, there's perhaps a bit more music here than you might expect, but unlike Tokyo Knights the upper registers sound nicely full bodied. Sound effects (like gunshots) resonate decently if never overly authoritatively. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout the presentation.

The Man with a Shotgun Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc Two of this set contains Eight Hours of Terror, Tokyo Knights and The Man With a Shotgun along with the following supplements:

• Trailers

  Man With a Shotgun (1961) Trailer (1080p; 4:16)

  Tokyo Knights (1961) Trailer (1080p; 3:51)

• Still Galleries

  Eight Hours of Terror (1957) Gallery (1080p; 00:24)

  Man With a Shotgun (1961) Gallery (1080p; 00:21)

  Tokyo Knights (1961) Gallery (1080p; 00:21)

Note: The supplement score above is for the set as a whole.

The Man with a Shotgun Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

From a just baseline enjoyment angle, The Man With a Shotgun was by far my favorite film in this set, even though it's probably inarguable that Smashing the 0-Line is the "best" outing in this volume. The entire film is just patently weird, plopping a modern day (i.e., circa 1961) "ranger" down in a "wild west" town (and/or mill) and having a field day skewing and skewering long held cinematic western traditions. Arrow's technical presentation is largely winning, and The Man With a Shotgun comes Recommended.