Heat Wave

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No Heat

As a yakuza eiga, Heatwave is much more achieved than Gosha's successful Wives of the yakuza. Still it doesn't measure up to his sixties and seventies masterpieces such as Goyokin or The Wolves. Actors are excellent and the movie is shot in a good classic way. Still the slow motion is badly used and the cinematography of some scenes -a sensual spectacle, a sex scene- looks like bad eighties flashy cinema. The screenplay is dealing with the conflict between individual desire and code of honor just like in many ninkyo eigas of the sixties (yakuza eigas based on that theme). But besides some character development what is lacking here is the total emotional communion Gosha had with his male rebels in his classics. His look's too much distant here. It's obvious in the final climax: alle the ingredients of greatness are here (good shooting, intensity of feeling) but the mad rage which gave their value to many final "one vs too many" revengeful climaxes in sixties' ninkyo eigas lacks. Good old school yakuza eiga but not great Gosha.