The Horizon Glitters
地平線がぎらぎらっ (Chiheisen ga Giragira)

New York Premiere

Michiyoshi Doi’s black comedy about a prison break gone horribly wrong is unlike anything else Shintoho was making at the time. Released just before the studio’s collapse, The Horizon Glitters is a brilliant one-off made with freedom and energy that verges on the anarchic and echoes the Hollywood movies that influenced Doi’s generation of directors. Five convicts end up in the same cell: Ota a.k.a. "Capone" (Jun Tatara), Matsuda a.k.a. "Professor" (Shigeru Amachi), Tsuchiya a.k.a. "Bartender" (Ryuji Oki), Ohira a.k.a. "Irokichi" (Saburo Otsuji) and a drug smuggling sailor known as "Sea Monster" (Yuzo Harumi). With the surly Capone as boss, they maintain a rough harmony–until a new prisoner (Fujio) is tossed into their midst. When ‘Mite–short for "Dynamite"–announces that he knows the whereabouts of a large cache of diamonds, escape is in order. Who will meet their fate before they reach the diamonds? What lies at the journey’s end? The glitter draws our heroes on—but the horizon keeps receding.

Japan. 1960. B&W, blu-ray, 89 min., in Japanese with English subtitles. Directed by Michiyoshi Doi. With Shigeru Amachi, Masayo Banri, Toru Chiba, Jerry Fujio.

Part of the Globus Film Series 2013

TICKETS
$12/$9 Japan Society members, seniors and students

Buy tickets online or call the Japan Society Box Office at (212) 715-1258, Mon. – Fri. 11 am – 6 pm, Weekends 11 am – 5 pm.