Tokyo Drifter

Part of the Hanabi Film Festival 2026. Limited festival passes available while supplies last.

Doors open at 5:30 PM; film at 6:00 PM.

In this jazzy gangster film, reformed killer Tetsu’s attempt to go straight is thwarted when his former cohorts call him back to Tokyo to help battle a rival gang. Director Seijun Suzuki’s onslaught of stylized violence and trippy colors is equal parts Russ Meyer, Samuel Fuller, and Nagisa Ōshima—an anything-goes, in-your-face rampage.

Suzuki’s bosses at the Nikkatsu Corporation had been warning him to tone down his bizarre visual style for years and drastically reduced the film’s budget in hopes of getting a standard yakuza film out of the director. This had the opposite effect.

Suzuki and art director Takeo Kimura pushed themselves to new heights of surrealism and absurdity, forcing the studio to demand his next film, Branded to Kill, to be in black and white. This too pushed Suzuki into even weirder territory and he was subsequently fired and black listed from the industry for a decade until returning with A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness.

Screened in Japanese with English subtitles.