The Angry Street (1950) User Reviews

The Short Con Catches Up

[boblipton · 6/10 · 3 September 2019]

Ûkichi Uno and Yasumi Hara are returned soldiers going to school, on the surface anyway. They make money through confidence tricks on women. Uno writes the scripts, and the smooth Hara carries them out. Hara comes from decayed nobility. All they have left is the house. Grandmother thinks the money is from the job as a bus conductress that Hara's sister, Setsuko Wakayama, holds. Hara tells them his money comes from a job playing the piano in a band. However, as Hara grows bolder in his depredations, Uno, under the influence of Miss Wakayama, starts to regret their crimes.

Mikio Naruse's movie is well written and acted, and the focus on the leads' preying on women is within his wheelhouse, but the focus on the men who do it, and the issues of their redemption and damnation are not his usual themes. I found it interesting, but I am fascinated by confidence games. The result is a good movie, but not one of the director's best.

Seamy story of two conmen in post WWII Japan

[pscamp01 · 7/10 · 13 April 2019]

Many characters in Mikio Naruse's movies are consumed with money but I don't think any of them have gone to the lengths that the two lead characters here do. Jûkichi Uno and Yasumi Hara star as two veterans who are enrolled in college. To make ends meet they fleece pretty young women from the rising middle class. Less a crime story (although there is plenty of that) and more of a character study of two people who seem to have lost their moral bearings because of their experiences during the war. In fact, all of Tokyo seems to be suffering from the same dilemma, as the two lead characters, black marketers and drug dealers are contrasted with the honest and hard working poor who are reduced to long hours and menial work. Starker than many of Naruse's movies but not one without hope.