For quite a long while Seijun Suzuki (real name Seitarō Suzuki) was the third most famous director from Japan behind the iconic Akira Kurasowa and Godzilla’s Ishirō Honda. Suzuki achieved this status in the late ’90s when his movies Branded To Kill and Tokyo Drifter arrived in America on DVD. The strange irony is that these two films so displeased the executives at Nikkatsu that they fired him at the end of the ’60s. Yet his name and the 40 movies he directed are the main reason film fans in America care about the Nikkatsu logo. Underground Beauty was the first time he worked in Cinemascope and used the name Seijun Suzuki in the credits. The World premiere of Underworld Beauty in Blu-ray allows viewers to see into the shadows of this Yakuza tale.
After being released from prison, Miyamoto (Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades‘ Michitarô Mizushima) lifts up a manhole cover and goes into the sewer system. He retrieves diamonds and a handgun that he stashed before his bust. He arrives at a teen dance club to find his old Yakuza boss Oyane (The Red Angel‘s Shinsuke Ashida). His goal is to sell the diamonds so the money can help a fellow mobster who took a bullet for him. The injury has taken the pal out of the game. He runs a tiny restaurant stall on the street that isn’t popular. Oyane isn’t interested in charity when it comes to the diamonds. Miyamoto gets screwed over during the black-market sale (although he doesn’t know that Oyane is behind it). The pal does a drastic step to keep the crooked mobster from winning. This leads Miyamoto to meeting his pal’s sister Akiko (A Killer Without a Grave‘s Mari Shiraki). She’s a model for fashion mannequins who doesn’t back down. She pushes back a cop when she has to see her brother in the hospital. Oyane is not going to have an easy time duping her to get his hands on the diamonds.
If you’re a fan of Eddie Muller’s Noir Alley on Turner Classic Movies, you’ll easily gets sucked into the gangster life of Underworld Beauty. Seijun Suzuki really gets into visuals that marked the genre. The opening when Miyamoto hits the sewer, sets the mood for the whole film. There’s quite a bit of action below ground level. The use of mannequins is reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s Killer’s Kiss (1955). Although I don’t think Suzuki at that point had seen the movie that was made three years before. Killer’s Kiss was rather obscure in America. Can’t imagine it showed up in Japan before 2001 was a hit. You just have two directors realizing how they can amp up the creepiness of a scene with a bunch of mannequin parts all over the set. Making the film more than usual Yakuza plot is Akiko. This is an independent woman who wears pants in the post war Japan. She’s not part of the criminal game, but she’s not above gangster action when the times comes. Underworld Beauty shows that Seijun Suzuki wasn’t going to pump the usual formula yakuza films for Nikkatsu. Suzuki had a special sauce to make his movies memorable which is why we remember him.

The Video is 2.39:1 anamorphic. The 4K restoration makes black and white transfer just shine like the diamonds stashed in the sewer system. The Audio is Japanese LPCM 2.0 mono. The levels are great for the action. The movie is subtitled in English.
Mizuki Kodama (14:44) has the film critic get into how Seijun Suzuki was already messing with cinematic conventions this early in his career. Nikkatsu cranked out genre films like episodes of Law and Order: SVU. There was a formula. She points out things Suzuki did in his depiction of women that set him apart from other directors. The end of Underworld Beauty went against the conventions. Watch this after you see the film. Kodama speaks in Japanese with English subtitles.
Trailer (3:15) lets you know there’s quite a lot of ugliness to go with the beauty.
Love Letter (39:28) is a short film directed by Suzuki. This is a romance about a couple meeting during the winter in the mountains. Frank Nagai gets to break out a new romantic song. There’s an audio commentary from William Carroll.
Trailer for Love Letter (2:54) starts with a kiss in the snowy mountains between the couple. Frank Nagai sings!
Radiance Films present Underworld Beauty: Limited Edition. Directed by Seijun Suzuki. Screenplay by Susumu Saji. Starring Michitaro Mizushima, Mari Shiraki, Hideaki Nitani, Shinsuke Ashida, Kiroshi Kondo, Kaku Takashina and Toru Abe. Running Time: 87 minutes. Rating: Unrated. Release Date: January 28, 2025.