Introduction

While Toru Murakawa’s debut feature, a Nikkatsu’s roman-porno called Shiroi yubi no tawamure (1972), was highly acclaimed and destined him for a great career, he soon left Nikkatsu to return to his hometown of Yamagata to train under his father-in-law Takahashi Keisuke, a metal casting craftsman.

Yet, four years later, Toshio Masuda, one of the directors he worked under at Nikkatsu before making his debut, and NTV producer Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi gave him a chance to direct a television drama called Daitokai -Fighting Days-. During this time, he met Yusaku Matsuda. This encounter would prove to fruitful for both, as it motivated Masuda to make his full-fledged comeback as a film director starting with The Most Dangerous Game (1978) and his desire to work together with Matsuda would launch his career as a Toei tough guy for a new generation.

[This film is part of the Game-Trilogy blu-ray box set by Arrow video]

Review

In the late seventies, Japan’s financial sector is terrorized by a series of brutal kidnappings. While the police established an investigation force to swiftly deal with these troubling disappearances, the team has failed to find any leads.

One day, Shohei Narumi (Yusaku Matsuda), a hitman, is called by Dobashi (Daigo Kusano) from Tonichi Electronics with a job offer. As he has just lost a lot of money at a mah-jong parlour – and ended being roughed up by his fellow players after suggesting foul-play, he accepts, much against his desire, the invitation to meet. His job consists in rescuing Nobutaka Nanjo (Masanori Irie), the head of Tonichi electronics and son-in-law of the chairman Kohinata (Asao Uchida). Yet, things do not go as planned.

The Most Dangerous Game offer a story of corruption, violent crooked cops, betrayals, corporate power-struggles, and kidnappings. Yet, for those who look behind the wild shoot-outs and brutal brawls Murakawa’s narrative also delivers a critical celebration of a certain fantasy of maleness.

Before we delve into how Murakawa stages such fantasy through its main character, it is informative to explain which kind of power-struggle Narumi is caught up in. Early on the narrative, one learns that the series of brutal kidnappings in the financial sector are but a cover for the tactical elimination of key-figures of the Tonichi group. The police’s failure to find any leads is, in this sense, because they are fell into carefully orchestrated trap – their focus on financial sector blinds them.

Key-figures of the Tonichi group are targeted because, as the chairman tells us, they are about to win the bid against Godai Conglomerate to develop a highly sophisticated air defence alert system. Godai Conglomerate hopes that, with the help of fixer Seishiro Adachi (…), they can destabilize this project of national scale in the hopes of snatching away this highly lucrative project before the final decision is reached.   

If we now turn our attention to the character of Shohei Narumi, it is quite clear that his logic is structured by the male phallic fantasy, i.e. the fantasy of possessing what the female other desires. This is not only evident in the violent and misogynistic way he treats Kyoko (Keiko Tasaka), the girlfriend of one of his targets Igo (Hiroshi Nawa), but also in the way he utilizes the dynamic of male desirability to manipulate his male opponents (Narra-note 1). It is by boasting his assumed desirability and flaunting his phantasmatic possession of the real thing that can make a woman (sexually) happy that he succeeds in confronting the other with his lack and provoke him into doing something reckless to repair the inflicted imaginary injury.

How Narumi conducts his business as hitman illustrates two things. He can only function as a hitman by clothing himself with the image of male desirability, by believing he has what the female other desires, and the fact that the key-figures within corporate conflicts and economical competition are marked by a thirst for power, beauty, and wealth (Narra-note 2). The reason why he goes after the women of his targets is because they are his weakness. Not only are women necessary for a man to enjoy his position of power and desirability – the phallic fantasy is inherently relational in nature, but women can, in full knowledge of its phantasmatic nature, purposefully deceive the male subject.

While male spectators will surely enjoy most of Narumi’s exploits of male desirability, The Most Dangerous Game, unlike many other action-narratives, also emphasizes the fictional nature of this phallic desirability. The assumption of the phallic fantasy has, as the narrative clearly illustrates, real repercussions, but this image is, when all is said and done, a deceptive fiction – no male subject possesses the thing the other desires. Narumi’s ‘castrated’ nature is revealed, for instance, when he, after losing a lot of money and accusing his gambling opponents of cheating, is violently forced to apologize. Yet, while his ‘castration’ is echoed throughout the narrative, many male spectators will easily glance over it.

Given the violent way Narumi treats women, the spectator will surely wonder why Kyoko stays around him (Narra-note 3). Simply said, as she fears the violent repercussions of her betrayal, she feels safest around Narumi and the image of male desirability he clothes himself with. In other words, she believes that Narumi, as phantasmatic-phallic as he pretends to be, can protect her. This belief allows Narumi’s image of violent maleness to become the goal of her (sexual) desire. This desire for his maleness eventually leads Kyoko to demand that Narumi stops playing the too-dangerous game and fulfills his male ‘duty to protect’ her (Narra-note 4). 

The composition of The Most Dangerous Game is not only highly dynamic (zoom-ins, zoom-outs, … etc.) but, due to Murakawa’s fine sense of composition, also littered with visually interesting shot-compositions. While the visual satisfaction of these shots is, of course, due to Murakawa’s elegant play with the geometrical dimension (i.e. the way he arranges various visual elements within the frame), the lightning-design (i.e. the interplay between light and shadow) further accentuates the created compositional tensions and, thus, heightens the visual impact of such moments for the spectator. 

Murakawa also integrates moments of shaky framing in his narrative to great effect. By subtly echoing the visual style of documentary film, he does not merely emphasize the roughness of the many acts of violence and supports the sense of tension but gives his narrative a sense of realism (cine-note 1). Moreover, this subtle flavour of realism enhances the coolness of Narumi’s acts and signifiers. 

The noirish stylishness and hard-boiled coolness of The Most Dangerous Game is also supported by Yuji Ohno’s sultry score. By thoughtfully decorating sequences with jazzy music, Murakawa does not only infuse various moods and undertones into the unfolding of his narrative, but also creates an atmospheric rhythm that pulls the spectator straight into the narrative (Music-note 1).  

Even though the composition is littered with pleasant visuals and the visual flow is dictated by a seductive score, what truly elevates Murakawa’s narrative is Yusaku Matsuda’s acting performance. Much of the male spectator’s enjoyment is due to the effective way Matsuda channels the male fantasy of desirability. While this image is, of course, highly out-dated given today’s standards, his detached facial-expressions and cold-blooded body movements do not fail to still feel cool. Through Yusaku Matsuda’s terrific performance, some male spectators can fleetingly savour an image of male desirability that is, within the current societal climate, impossible and undesirable to attain and maintain.

Murakawa’s The Most Dangerous Game is a stylish noirish experience that offers many satisfying action moments and a chance for the male spectator to fleetingly savour an impossible fantasy of male desirability. What makes Murakawa’s narrative so satisfying are not the visual stylish surges nor the Ohno’s exquisite musical accompaniment as such, but Yusaku Matsuda’s performance, which harmonizes both elements and gives the narrative its seductive charm.

Notes

Cine-note 1: The use of still black and white photographs to decorate moments of exposition is another element that, by echoing documentary film, heightens the sense of realism of the narrative.

Music-note 1: Luckily, Murakawa does not overly rely on musical accompaniment to set the mood. In many cases, the quality of the atmosphere (e.g. a tensive atmosphere) is a result of the acting-performances as such.

Narra-note 1: Let us remark that the relationship between Igo and Kyoko was structured by phallic-induced fear. The reason why she let Igo utilize her body sexually and refused to betray him at first is simply because she was afraid of the consequences of denying his phallic status – his position of power.

Narra-note 2: One of the most pleasant moments that channels said phallic fantasy is when Kyoko watches Narumi when he prepares his guns. Kyoko’s facial expression, one of awe, leaves no doubt she feels that he truly has it – the guns are, in a certain sense, the physical proof of his phallic prowess.

Narra-note 3: While many spectators, even male, will wonder why Narumi needs to be violent towards women. Is it merely a way to exert his maleness or is there a different reason that underlies his violence? In our view, much of his misogynistic violence aims to radically distance himself from the female other. As he fully knows that men’s weakness lies in the woman who supports their phallic fantasy, he tries to push away the female other to avoid that his desire becomes ensnared by her. He simply cannot afford to have a weakness.      

Narra-note 4: This attraction to Narumi’s phallic ‘aura’ also leads Kyoko to want to sacrifice herself for him. As she is the one who lacks (Narumi’s imagined phallus), the least she can do is protect her beloved (phallus).