You have never seen a more bat sh#t crazy film as BLACK TIGHT KILLERS!
The colors, the sets, the fact every scene tops the one before- BLACK TIGHT KILLERS is a drug! Plus 1960's J Pop Music! Grab a beer and pass the pipe!
Jasper Sharp writes of Hasebe's visuals, he comments, "there is not a single individual sequence here that fails to deliver enough great dollops of saccharine-coated eye candy to satisfy even the most jaded visual gourmand". He concludes, "this simply magical film is a hoot from start to finish"
When director Yasuharu Hasebe never had one review in Japan when his film BLACK TIGHT KILLERS was released in 1966 he wasn’t surprised. The film played the equivalent of the grindhouse theaters in America at the time with a difference. In Japan only Yakuza, mobsters and juvenile delinquents went to those theaters. No critic was going to step foot in those theaters.
Watch the brilliant but insane BLACK TIGHT KILLERS by clicking here
Cocky Vietnam combat photographer Hondo (Akira Kobayashi) - so cool he quaffs a beverage in the midst of a shootout in Vietnam - is on a dinner date with pretty air stewardess Yoriko (Chieko Matsubara) when she is suddenly abducted by a gang of go-go dancing ninja girls in black tights! The foxy femmes frame Hondo for the killing of gangster Lopez, leaving the luckless shutterbug a target for clueless cops and an international crime syndicate who want to get their hands on Yoriko too. Sprung from jail by his American buddy Bill, Hondo sets out to find Yoriko and learn why everybody is after her. Meanwhile, those beautiful black tight killers keep popping up to either help or hinder him, wielding such unorthodox ninja tricks as bubblegum bullets, measuring-tape swords and vinyl record throwing discs.
Nikkatsu, Japan’s oldest film studio, ruled the Sixties with their hip, stylish pop art thrillers. Black Tight Killers, known as “Don’t Touch Me… I’m Dangerous!” in Japan, is a fine example of what they did best, before the box office crisis drove them to crank out nothing but so-called “roman porno” (romantic porn) movies from the Seventies onward. A vehicle for reigning matinee idol Akira Kobayashi (who made scores of westerns as a singing cowboy!), the film is equal parts James Bond spy spoof and MGM mod-musical. From the jazzy opening credits featuring a chorus line of hip-swivelling ninja go-go girls, action specialist Yasuharu Hasebe turns the scope screen into a riot of pop art playfulness. The exquisite art direction and eye-popping colours include an exceptional dream sequence wherein Yoriko flees her pursuers across a screen that switches from black and white to yellow to pink and blue.
Click this link for BLACK TIGHT KILLERS!
GIRL POP SINGERS OF 1960’S JAPAN:
Americans know the pop group THE PEANUTS, if they have ever seen a 1960's Mothra movie!
Love Fugue - The Peanuts 1963
Twin Sister act Yumi and Emi Ito perform their hit "Love Fugue" in 1963.
They were actually huge stars BEFORE Mothra!
Mothra:
Parents didn't like her doing gangster films with the likes of Sonny Chiba, didn't like her posing nude or singing about living free in the new Japan. That didn't stop teen girls from buying Mari Atsumi records by the truckload:
Ayumi Ishida’s very look was the new Japan. After World War 2 Japanese teen girls began to question everything from arranged marriage to what they could wear. Japan's past was slipping away to a younger beat.
Ayumi Ishida became the person who symbolized that change.
Jun Mauzumi sings BLACK ROOM! Great footage!
Mie Nakao Ahaa TOKYO BEATNIKS!
Introduced by Dick Clark!
Nana Konomi - Japan (1966)
J girls "Yellow World" mod, groovy 1960s song with trippy visuals
Don't forget to watch the bat shit crazy BLACK TIGHT KILLERS by clicking this underlined link!
Behind the paywall: GODZILLA TRAILERS!
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Global Psychotronic Film Society to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.