Rusty Knife, originally known as Sabita Naifu, is a Japanese film noir that mixes elements of a personal drama with gangster movie tropes. This was the third movie by young director Masuda Toshio for Nikkatsu Studio and this promising talent would work on excellent films such as war epic Tora! Tora! Tora! And the adventurous Lone Wolf and Cub television series later on in his career. This film stars young couple Ishihara Yujiro and Kitahara Mie who have already been collaborating on great genre flick I Am Waiting one year earlier among other examples.
This film revolves around bartender Tachibana Yukihiko who has just gotten out of prison for murdering the man who raped his fiancee which ultimately led to her tragical suicide. While he wants to go straight, he is mixed up in illegal activities again because he was the witness to the staged suicide of a city council member five years ago. The mob tracks down and murders the two other witnesses and leaves Tachibana Yukihiko with the choice to take an impressive amount of money and remain quiet or to refuse collaboration and bring the criminals to justice. The young man decides to go down the dangerous road of confronting the gangsters and gets support from Nishida Keiko, the daughter of the assassinated city council member who becomes a close friend. The most important riddle to be solved is to find out who is pulling the strings in industrial town Udaka and giving the Yakuza orders to kill and bribe council members.
This film convinces on a few levels. The acting performances by Ishihara Yujiro and Kitahara Mie are strong from an individual point of view and excel when they appear together due to their excellent screen and real-life chemistry. The settings have been chosen with great care and show the sinister sides of an apparently soaring industrial town. The light and sound effects have been employed with great care and give the movie a grippingly oppressive atmosphere.
Rusty Knife is however not without a few flaws. The movie features quite a few lengths as especially the middle section is somewhat tedious. The soundtrack isn't as strong as the ones used for many other contemporary genre films. The story is quite predictable as it only takes a few moments to figure out who the main antagonist is.
At the end of the day, I would recommend Rusty Knife or Sabita Naifu to fans of film noir material and Japanese post-war cinema from the forties, fifties and sixties. This movie entertains with fitting light and sound effects, great acting performances and sinister atmosphere but fails to leave a lasting impression due to an exchangeable soundtrack, predictable antagonist and tedious middle section. This film deserves to be classified as a good genre flick but can't be considered a highlight that deserves to be revisited.
