Japanese director Seijun Suzuki solidified his growing cult following with this offbeat adaptation of Haruhiko Ooyabu's crime novel. Jo Shishido stars as Det. Tajima, a smug investigator who nabs a pair of criminal gangs with flamboyant aplomb while the police remain baffled. Suzuki treats the rather hoary plotline as an excuse for dark-humored camp, and young audiences were delighted with his irreverent approach, which made him one of the few distinctive names in the '60s assembly-line of Nikkatsu Studios. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

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FROM THE LEGENDARY DIRECTOR OF TOKYO DRIFTER AND BRANDED TO KILL

STARRING JAPANESE SUPERSTAR JO SHISHIDO (BRANDED TO KILL and A COLT IS MY PASSPORT)

Assigned a standard Yakuza film in the hardboiled vein pioneered at Japan s famed Nikkatsu Studios, director Seijun Suzuki (Branded to Kill) and his frequent leading man Jo Shishido used 1963 s Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards! to flip the Japanese gangster film genre on its ear. A rapid fire gun heist, credits with an infectious jazz pop score, and a wide-screen close-up of a burning car announce Detective Bureau 2-3 as the film that would both lampoon and redefine Asian crime films for an irreverent new decade of garish panache and ultra-violent cool. The story follows police detective Tajima (Shishido), who, tasked with tracking down stolen firearms, turns an underworld grudge into a bloodbath -- while Suzuki transforms a colorful potboiler into an on-target send-up of cultural colonialism and post-war greed. (This isn t an American TV series,) one of Tajima s doubting subordinates tells the sharkskin-suited, super suave sleuth. Anarchic, breakneck paced, darkly comic, and stylish to the extreme, Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards! was a movie unlike anything audiences had ever seen. It would cement Suzuki s fervent popularity at home and heralded his imminent cult status worldwide.

1963 Japan 88 min. Color In Japanese with Optional English Subtitles Letterboxed (2.35:1) Enhanced for 16x9 TVs