The Hoodlum Priest (1967)
The first film in the 2 part series about Ryuzen, a renegade martial-arts priest who, in addition to breaking all the commandments against sex and gambling, opens his own gambling den in direct defiance of the local yakuza boss. Exciting action and a twisty plot this movie breaks new barriers in Japanese cinema. Katsu Shintaro is superb in one of his better non-Zato Ichi roles as he fights off the advances of a love-lorn woman and risks his life to defeat the powerful gambling boss who has a stranglehold on the town.
Actors: Shintarō Katsu, Mayumi Ogawa, Mikio Narita, Kayo Mikimoto, Naoko Kubo, Jun Tatara, Hōsei Komatsu, Ryūtarō Gomi, Yoshio Kaneuchi, Fumio Watanabe
Country: Japan
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