Wolf (1955 film)

Wolf (狼, Okami) is a 1955 Japanese crime drama film written and directed by Kaneto Shindo.[2]

Wolf
Japanese狼
Directed byKaneto Shindo
Produced byToshio Itoya
Tengo Yamada
Setsuo Noto
Written byKaneto Shindo
StarringNobuko Otowa
Jun Hamamura
Ichirō Sugai
Sanae Takasugi
Taiji Tonoyama
Music byAkira Ifukube
CinematographyTakeo Itō
Edited byZenju Imaizumi
Release date
  • 3 July 1955 (1955-07-03)
[1]
Running time
127 minutes
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese

Plot

After an opening sequence showing a group of people hijacking a post office truck, a montage of press coverage and police investigations, and the arrest of Akiko, one of the gang members, the film switches to a flashback narration covering the preceding events: A group of 5 insurance salesmen and -women are facing dismissal for not accomplishing the company's sales plan, with all of them already living under precarious social conditions. War widows Akika and Fujibayashi have to raise their children on their own, Yoshikawa and Mikawa, one a hapless screenwriter, one a former car factory worker who lost his job after an accident, can hardly feed their families, and Harashima, a bank clerk fired for his union activities, lives in an unhappy marriage with a wife who refuses to divorce him without severance. Out of desperation, they decide to rob a post office money transport on its daily route. The coup is successful, but later the members of the group, titled "wolves" in the press, are caught one after another. The last to be arrested is Akiko, who needed the money for an operation on her disfigured son, and is already being expected by the police at the hospital where her son is treated.

Cast

Production

Shindo had based his screenplay for Wolf on an actual event, the robbing of a truck by a group of five insurance agents, including two women, who had no previous criminal records and acted out of sheer poverty. The film was produced by Shindo's and actor Taiji Tonoyama's own production company Kindai Eiga Kyōkai after Nikkatsu studios backed out of the project shortly before shooting began. Itō Takerō of the independent company Dokuritsu Eiga helped in funding the production. Wolf was shown in only a few independent cinemas and was a failure with the audience.[3] Tonoyama, who appeared in many of Shindo's films, said that this was his favourite role of all of the director's films.[4]

References
  1. "Entry for Wolf at the Kinema Junpo site" (in Japanese). Retrieved 30 December 2020.
  2. "Wolf". Complete Index to World Film. 2 June 2012. Retrieved 2 June 2012.
  3. "Kaneto Shindo on the making of Wolf". filmtv.it (in Italian). 18 March 2015. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
  4. Shindo, Kaneto (2012). Nagase, Hiroko (ed.). 100 sai no ryugi [The Centenarian's Way] (in Japanese). PHP. ISBN 978-4-569-80434-7.
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