The concept of prison, whether literal or metaphorical, has haunted the art of cinema from the time of the early talkies. George Hill’s The Big House (1930) stands out as an influential prison narrative and 1958 American film The Defiant Ones put the sub-genre of the prison-break on the cinematographic map.

[Eureka released Abashira Prison (1965) on blu-ray as part of their boxed set Prison Walls : Abashiri Prison 1-3.]

The successful remake of Stanley Kramer’s classic by Teruo Ishii led Toei to demand a sequel as soon as possible – strike the iron while it is hot. In less than three months, Another Abashiri Prison Story was released in cinemas. Yet, while Ishii’s sequel continues Shinichi Tachibana’s story, the story does not take place within the confines of Abashiri prison, but outside its walls, in the wide-open societal field. Another Abashiri Prison Story is thus not a prison-narrative like the title might imply, but a yakuza-genre piece.

In Ishii’s sequel, Shinichi Tachibana (Ken Takakura) and one of his fellow cellmates Otsuki (Kunie Tanaka) are released from Abashiri prison. On the boat from Hokkaido to the main island, Otsuki takes the opportunity to steal an imitation algae ball from a nun. Yet, due to this opportunistic act, Tachibana, Otsuki and Yumi (Michiko Saga), a woman who tried to pickpocket Tachibana before boarding, suddenly find themselves embroiled in the aftermath of the bank robbery.

Another Abashiri Prison Story is, however one looks at it, a haphazardly put together narrative that erases most of the themes the first narrative explores and, consequently, turns its titular hero in a more typical yakuza-figure. Yet, despite this thematical and tonal break, Ishii still succeeds in delivering a narrative web of violent threats and twists that satisfactorily raise the tension as the finale draws near. Spectators will be treated to a stripping scene with Michiko the Snake (Yoko Mihara), a gambling sequence disturbed by a legendary criminal merely mentioned in Abashiri Prison – a violent deus ex machina, and a dangerously hot passage in a Turkish bath.  

With most of the action taking place in Aomori, many spectators will argue that the dynamic of the prison is completely absent in Another Abashiri Prison Story. Yet, if we define a ‘prison’ as an enclosed space where one’s freedom is limited, the cruise ship can be seen as a prison-like structure. It is within such space that the field of the imaginary becomes most destructive (i.e. the dynamic of aggressivity) and most seductive. Ishii reveals how the act of stealing is born of the wish to take hold of the other’s enjoyment. What satisfies the pickpocket and the crook is not the obtaining of the object (e.g. money) as such but the creation of a lack of enjoyment in this other. What concerns the dynamic of seduction, Ishii shows that the female subject, through elegant acts and inviting signifiers, seemingly gives the male subject a promise of sexual enjoyment or grants him a sign of his ability to sexually satisfy the seduced/seducing woman. This message of sexual desire which echoes in the seductive signifier can, as Yumi shows in the narrative, easily be exploited by the female subject to cover up a criminal act of castration (e.g. pickpocket money).    

Another Abashiri Prison Story also touches upon the difficulty to reform subjects caught within the hierarchal structure of organized ‘familial’ crime. The societal failure to rehabilitate these subjects is caused by the inability to counter the hierarchal network of fathers (oyabun) and brothers (aniki) that gives the criminal subjects their societal position and stuff their ego with meaning. Otsuki and Tachibana do not simply turn to the local oyabun because crime is all they know, but because it is the only way for them to give meaning to their life and sense to their acts and enunciations.

Spectators who watched Abashiri Prison will remember that the failing father figures pushed Shinichi Tachibana into the arms of the yakuza – the criminal father stabilized his ego and breathed sense into his life. Due to Tachibana’s embedment in such a familial structure, his violence did not aim at extracting enjoyment, but aimed at providing the criminal father proof of his loyalty – each criminal act, a sign of loyalty. While the contrast between criminality as defined by transgressive enjoyment and the assumption of the law as one’s own and criminality as born from loyalty to the father is not further developed thematically in the narrative, it echoes throughout and bursts forth to animate Another Abashiri Prison Story’sfinale. 

Another Abashiri Prison Story also fleetingly echoes that the dark threatening shadow of Abashiri prison haunts the former convicts, like Tachibana. Yet, rather than going straight – a clean break within the societal field, the former convicts seek refuge in the arms of the criminal parent and turn to criminal acts that appear legitimate (i.e. swindling) to the societal Other.  

Even though the dynamic of a prison-like space and the mendacious and seductive imaginary is fleetingly touched upon, Another Abashiri Prison Story is thematically transformed into a straightforward yakuza affair. Spectators hoping for another exploration of relational dynamics between inmates who are forced to live together in a small confined space and the conflict that arises from clashing desires and pleasures will be sorely disappointed. 

The thematical shift is most apparent in Ishii’s choice to ignore Shinichi Tachibana’s familial background and the maternal spectre that complicated his position as criminal. While one can, of course, argue that Tachibana’s oedipal conflict was resolved at the end of Abashiri Prison, the lack of any reference to his mother or his sister in the sequel radically simplifies Tachibana’s character. Ishii could have used the sequel to further develop the oedipal dilemma that marks his main character and utilized this complex to explore his ambivalent relation with respect to the criminal act, but, instead, chose to reduce his conflicted hero into a good-hearted yakuza figure who fears going back to the cold white hell of Abashiri prison.

Yet, Ishii does not simply erase the oedipal dilemma from Tachibana’s subjective functioning, but lets him make choices that are not in line with his character – choices that feel contradictory and go against some of his enunciated signifiers. By removing such psychological depth from the sequel, the spectator cannot but be confused about Tachibana’s conduct in the finale. While his acts help create a tensive action-rich finale, these acts have no clear aim and do not seem to serve his subjectivity.

The effect of Toei’s demand to rapidly create a sequel is most apparent in Ishii’s composition. In contrast to Abashiri Prison (1965), where Ishii shows off his sense for composition and affirms his understanding of the expressive potential of the filmic image, Ishii delivers a straightforward and uninspiring visual fabric for the sequel. With little time to truly think deeply about how to bring the narrative of Another Abashiri Prison Story – the fate of the pressure of time, Ishii shows off, for better or worse, his most pragmatic side. Even the shift from monochrome colours to a polychromatic colour-scheme is not utilized by Ishii to decoratively enhance the spectator’s pleasure.

With Another Abashiri Prison Story, Ishii delivers an enjoyable thriller – a straight-forward yakuza flick with many pleasant moments, but not the sequel the first narrative deserved. Despite the satisfying finale, the next chapter in Tachibana’s narrative sheds the themes that made the first narrative so impactful and erases the complexity that characterizes its main character.