Hot Picks

- There's No Such Thing as Zombies 2020

- Ready for My Close Up 2019

- Watch the Skies 2022

- Dream Hacker 2025

- Love and Comminication 2022

- If I Could Ride Again 2025

- Freak Off 2025

- Lavender Men 2025

- Lost Cos 2023

- Sound of the Surf 2022

- The Stillness 2025

- Frankie Freako 2024

- The Texas Witch 2025

- Cannibal Mukbang 2023

- Bleeding 2024

- No Choice 2025

- Nahual 2025

- Bitter Souls 2025

- A Very Long Carriage Ride 2025

- The Matriarch 2024

- Oxy Morons 2025

- Ed Kemper 2025

- Piglet 2025

- Walter, Grace & the Submarine 2024

- Midnight in Phoenix 2025

- Dorothea 2025

- Mauler 2025

- Consecration 2023

- The Death of Snow White 2025

- Franklin 2025

- ApoKalypse 2025

- Live and Die in East LA 2023

- A Season for Love 2025

- The Arkansas Pigman Massacre 2025

- Visceral: Between the Ropes of Madness 2012

- The Darkside of Society 2023

- Jackknife 2024

- Family Property 2: More Blood 2025

- Feral Female 2025

- Amongst the Wolves 2024

- Autumn 2023

- Bob Trevino Likes It 2024

- A Hard Place 2025

- Finding Nicole 2025

- Juliet & Romeo 2025

- Off the Line 2024

- First Moon 2025

- Healing Towers 2025

- Final Recovery 2025

- Greater Than 2014

- Self Driver 2024

- Primal Games 2025

- Grumpy 2023

- Swing Bout 2024

- Dalia and the Red Book 2024

- Project MKGEXE 2025

- Two to One 2024

- Left One Alive 2025

- Talk of the Dead 2016

- A Killer Conversation 2014

- First Impressions Can Kill 2017

- Star Crash 1979

- Strangler of the Swamp 1946

Furaibo Tantei: Akai Tani no Sangeki

Drifting Detective: Tragedy in the Red Valley

Japan 1961
produced by
Toei
directed by Kinji Fukasaku
starring Sonny Chiba, Shigemi Kitahara, Junya Usami, Takashi Kanda, Gozo Soma
music by Masayoshi Ikeda

Drifting Detective

review by
Mike Haberfelner

Quick Links

Abbott & Costello

The Addams Family

Alice in Wonderland

Arsène Lupin

Batman

Bigfoot

Black Emanuelle

Bomba the Jungle Boy

Bowery Boys

Bulldog Drummond

Captain America

Charlie Chan

Cinderella

Deerslayer

Dick Tracy

Dick Turpin

Dr. Mabuse

Dr. Orloff

Doctor Who

Dracula

Edgar Wallace made in Germany

Elizabeth Bathory

Emmanuelle

Fantomas

Flash Gordon

Frankenstein

Frankie & Annette Beach Party movies

Freddy Krueger

Fu Manchu

Fuzzy

Gamera

Godzilla

Hercules

El Hombre Lobo

Incredible Hulk

Jack the Ripper

James Bond

Jekyll and Hyde

Jerry Cotton

Jungle Jim

Justine

Kamen Rider

Kekko Kamen

King Kong

Laurel and Hardy

Lemmy Caution

Lobo

Lone Wolf and Cub

Lupin III

Maciste

Marx Brothers

Miss Marple

Mr. Moto

Mister Wong

Mothra

The Munsters

Nick Carter

OSS 117

Phantom of the Opera

Philip Marlowe

Philo Vance

Quatermass

Robin Hood

The Saint

Santa Claus

El Santo

Schoolgirl Report

The Shadow

Sherlock Holmes

Spider-Man

Star Trek

Sukeban Deka

Superman

Tarzan

Three Mesquiteers

Three Musketeers

Three Stooges

Three Supermen

Winnetou

Wizard of Oz

Wolf Man

Wonder Woman

Yojimbo

Zatoichi

Zorro

A plane crashes in some mountains, killing Mr Nakumo, the rich but benign major landowner of the region, and now his erstwhile rival Kido claims Nakuma has written all his land over to him, including the land of an orphanage/farm, and owner and orphans are threatened with eviction if they are unable to pay an exorbitant rent - which would of course play right into Kido's hands, who wants to build a skeeing resort in the region and could very well need the orphanage as a hotel.

Enter drifter Goro (Sonny Chiba), who's actually a detective for Nakumo's company who can't quite understand why Nakumo would sign over his land - and when he's repeatedly shot at by Kido's men, he knows he's on the right track. Kido meanwhile has hired hitman Tetsu the Blade to guard his interests, and when Tetsu and Goro meet, they take an immediate liking into one another, even though they know they fight on opposite sides.

Eventually and after much to and fro, Goro finds out the planecrash was not an accident at all but orchestrated by Kido's own girlfriend, and Nakumo was not in the plane at all but forced to sign over his land afterwards and then killed. Kido has to realize that Goro has come too close to the truth, so he has Shikako, the daughter of the owner of the orphanage and Goro's love interest, kidnapped to keep him in line, but Goro decides to attack Kido's hideout and shoot her free - a suicide mission if it wasn't for Tetsu, who switches allegiances and helps Goro in not only freeing Shikako but also seeing to it that all the baddies get their just rewards.

 

A very early film by later cult director Kinji Fukasaku, starring Sonny Chiba towards the beginning of his career, this is a competently handled and likeable whodunnit/detective adventure, that curiously enough shows many parallels to B-Westerns from the 1930's and 40's in both style (lots of horses and stetsons, lots of fistfights and shootouts, ...) and story. But while all of this sounds like cult potential, this film will probably never become a cult classic, it's merely light-footed genre entertainment with no deeper meaning to it, which means while the film might be 100% enjoyable, it's also something you will have forgotten rather quickly.

 

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

Feeling lucky?
Want to
search
any of my partnershops yourself
for more, better results?
(commissions earned)

The links below
will take you
just there!!!

Find Drifting Detective: Tragedy in the Red Valley
at the amazons ...

USA  amazon.com

Great Britain (a.k.a. the United Kingdom)  amazon.co.uk

Germany (East AND West)  amazon.de

Looking for imports?
Find Drifting Detective: Tragedy in the Red Valley here ...

Thailand  eThaiCD.com
Your shop for all things Thai


Thanks for watching !!!

 

 

In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

 

There's No Such Thing as Zombies
starring
Luana Ribeira, Rudy Barrow and Rami Hilmi
special appearances by
Debra Lamb and Lynn Lowry

 

directed by
Eddie Bammeke

written by
Michael Haberfelner

produced by
Michael Haberfelner, Luana Ribeira and Eddie Bammeke

 

now streaming at

Amazon

Amazon UK

Vimeo

 

 

 

Robots and rats,
demons and potholes,
cuddly toys and
shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

is all of that.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to
-
a collection of short stories and mini-plays
ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic
to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle, all thought up by
the twisted mind of
screenwriter and film reviewer
Michael Haberfelner.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

the new anthology by
Michael Haberfelner

 

Out now from
Amazon!!!