Film 4/5 in the Nikkatsu Noir series, and like Take Aim at the Police Van before it, Cruel Gun Story has a great title.
This one is less noir-ish and more of a straightforward heist film than any of the films in this boxset that came before, and I was perfectly okay with that. Heist movies are always satisfying when they get the basic components right, and all the stages are executed fairly well here- the planning, the heist itself, and then the inevitable fallout and consequences.
There's some good shootouts, and Jo Shishido makes for a good lead, as he always seems to do. I wish the aftermath of the heist had been a little more engaging, or at least on par with the first two chunks of the film, but it still had a decent conclusion overall.
Easy to recommend if you want something like Stanley Kubrick's The Killing, which is another tight and satisfying black & white heist movie that I should maybe revisit some day.
This one is less noir-ish and more of a straightforward heist film than any of the films in this boxset that came before, and I was perfectly okay with that. Heist movies are always satisfying when they get the basic components right, and all the stages are executed fairly well here- the planning, the heist itself, and then the inevitable fallout and consequences.
There's some good shootouts, and Jo Shishido makes for a good lead, as he always seems to do. I wish the aftermath of the heist had been a little more engaging, or at least on par with the first two chunks of the film, but it still had a decent conclusion overall.
Easy to recommend if you want something like Stanley Kubrick's The Killing, which is another tight and satisfying black & white heist movie that I should maybe revisit some day.