"Afraid to Die"
1960
Directed by Yasuzo Masumura

In a rare film appearance, the gifted and tragic Japanese writer Yukio Mishima stars in this fantastic yakuza film from Yasuzo Masumura. Mishima plays a young gangster who is released from prison only to find that he is a marked man, forced to fight for his survival. "Masumura's film fits squarely into the New Wave phenomenon with a fast-moving but nearly incomprehensible plot and talent from outside the established movie world, such as novelist Mishima. A satirical look at the yakuza world before the genre of gangster films became formula..." (Audie Bock, Pacific Film Archive). Japanese with English subtitles.  94 minutes.