REVIEW - Zoku Abashiri Bangaichi - Abashiri Prison 2 (Teruo Ishii, 1965)

After the success of the first Abashiri Prison film Teruo Ishii and Ken Takakura moved onto the first of many sequels. The first notable difference with the second in the series is that this film was shot in colour, a huge difference from the stark black and white of the first film. The location has also changed with Shin’Ichi out of prison and by the sea, no more snow drifts and bleak weather, the location of Abashiri Prison offers sunshine and a much larger female cast.

The film begins with a heist in a bank where jewels are stolen from a vault and the accomplice to the robbery shot. the film then cuts to a sunny port where Shin’Ichi, his sidekick Otsuki and almost all of the main cast are about to board a boat. These characters are all introduced to the audience in brief vignettes, in particular a pretty pickpocket named Yumi and a couple, the wife, a stripper and the hen-pecked husband, a trumpet player, who seems to have their child permanently strapped to his back.

Once aboard the boat we see a nun carrying a box of souvenirs, imitation algae balls, which she drops and in the confusion Otsuki pockets one of them. We discover later that this algae ball contains the jewels from the heist earlier and the men who pulled off the heist want to get the jewels back. They offer Tachibana and Otsuki, now 'comically' running scams as a panty seller and a beggar respectively, money for the ball and also tip off the police that Tachbana, Otsuki and Yumi are the jewel thieves. They learn from the paper that the safe cracker was shot in the robbery and that the nun, who was also an accomplice, was thrown off the boat, all of which the thieves are pinning on the trio. What ensues is essentially a chase film with a very B-movie plot as the thieves try and get the jewels back only to be outwitted with twists and turns with various characters getting caught up along the way. At one point the stripper ends up with the ball and then proceeds to gamble it and all her clothes away in a crooked gambling den. Tachibana and Yumi turn up to get the ball back and are helped by Onitora (Kanjuro Arashi), a prison friend of Tachibana’s from the first film, and they escape with the ball. In the meantime the son of the stripper has become ill and is taken to the hospital by her father who is refused treatment as he does not have enough money. At this point Tachibana makes a speech to the doctor about the rights of everyone to healthcare and that the poor should not be treated any differently. Although this is a stand out moment for serious social issues getting screen-time and interesting in its hinting at Ishii’s left wing political leanings it seems to be somewhat incongruous in what is a somewhat frothy crime film. Although it is subtexts such as this that makes genre film like this so great, in this instance it feels very clumsily inserted.

After telling Tachibana that she loves him, Yumi goes off to try and sell one of the jewels to garner them some money but is caught by the thieves who are led in part by Yoda (Toru Abe), another inmate from Abashiri, and when Tachibana comes to rescue her Tachibana is tortured for the whereabouts of the ball. The torture involves placing him in a steam bath at high temperatures until he begins to literally boil inside. At this point Otsuki turns up to rescue them but they are stopped by more of the thieves turning up. They all agree to meet the next day at the Fire Festival to handover the ball. As collateral they each take a hostage, Yumi and Yoda.

At the Fire Festival the two are traded off and the ball given back to the thieves but as they are exchanging Yumi picks the ball from Yoda and a large fight breaks out. This fight ends with just Tachibana and Yoda fighting it out in the mud in quite a lacklustre scene. Yumi declares to Tachibana that she will turn herself in and that she will come back to love him once she is let out.

Tachibana turns and literally walks off into the sunset, singing the theme to the series.
Overall the second film in the Abashiri seres is an entertaining crime film but it feels somewhat rushed with humour that doesn’t quite work, Ken Takakura as the panty seller just isn’t funny, and action scenes that lack the tension and excitement to propel the plot forward. The script is full of a lot of what seems like lazy writing with contrivances linking up the characters actions. Having said all this, it is an enjoyable film but it feels like it could have been a lot better.