Thursday, January 19, 2023, 7:30 p.m., Dryden Theatre
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Tokyo Drifter (1966)
(Tokyô nagaremono, Seijun Suzuki, Japan 1966, 82 min., 35mm, Japanese w/English subtitles)
Garish colors, a pulsating jazz score, Guys and Dolls sets, and a Western-style saloon brawl are mingled with an eccentric knack for abstraction. Tokyo Drifter is an action film conceived as a true work of Pop Art, with a playful, reckless disregard for logic and narrative coherence. "Is it necessary to add," critic Tony Rayns exclaimed after the re-release of this cult movie, "that the result is one of the most brilliant genre movies ever made?"