Cruel Gun Story, 1964 - ★★★★

"The Killers" / "Reservoir Dogs" - Yakuza style. A crime thriller that's also maybe a meditation on post-war Japanese pathos and emasculation. The set pieces -- particularly the two variations on the central heist -- are well beyond what I expected from this era of filmmaking.

As a complete geopolitical/historical aside, the post war era -- even in victorious countries -- played out with considerably more pathos abroad. The US claimed a hard won and righteous victory, but also made it into an aesthetic.

The Yakuza are its biggest admirers, but also clearly resent the secondary status, to planes flying in formation overhead, or abandoned "bases" that littered with graffiti and burnt out cars.