A Colt Is My Passport (1967) review – A visually stunning, ultra-cool masterpiece that ranks among the finest films in the Yakuza genre

As I sat down to watch this film and the opening credits started playing to an Ennio Morricone-esque, Spaghetti-Western-styled tune, I knew I was in for a treat, and I wasn’t wrong. Takashi Namura’s A Colt Is My Passport is an elegant and stylishly shot film and one of the finest representations of the Yakuza genre, but it has been overlooked unjustly in favor of its more well-known contemporaries.

Yakuza chief Senzaki (Hideaki Esumi) hires professional hitman Shuji Kamimura (Joe Shishido) to kill his old business partner and rival Yakuza boss Shimazu (Kanjuro Arashi) in exchange for money and a safe passage outside the country. Although Kamimura executes the assassination efficiently, Senzaki betrays him for the business partnership and money offered by Shimazu’s son in exchange for his death. As a result, Kamimura and his driver, Shun Shiozaki (Jerry Fujio), hide out in a run-down motel, where they meet Mina (Chitose Kobayashi), the motel’s waitress, who takes a shine to Kamimura and tries to arrange their escape on a ship. But things don’t go as planned, and now two Yakuza groups are hunting them as they struggle to stay alive. Can Kamimura overcome his opponents and survive before they manage to kill him?

A Colt is My Passport feels like a cross between French New Wave films (like those of Jean-Pierre Melville) and spaghetti westerns (like those of Sergio Leone). Jean-Pierre Melville’s storytelling style, whose films were known for their meticulous plotting, is evoked by scenes like the one where Kamimura sets himself up to assassinate Shimazu and the one towards the end when he prepares a bomb. On the other hand, the climax and the score will remind you of Sergio Leone, who was known for creating intense showdowns in his spaghetti western films. I wouldn’t be surprised if this film influenced Vince Gilligan’s writing of Breaking Bad. Towards the film’s climax, Kamimura and the Yakuza thugs are poised to engage in a decisive showdown. So, before the fight, there is a scene in which director Takashi Nomura shows Kamimura preparing a bomb (using multiple sticks of dynamite with a stopwatch as a timer) without telling us how he plans to use it. By showcasing the plan’s preparation before disclosing its implementation, Nomura builds anticipation among viewers about how Kamimura would employ it, and the reveal of the plan’s execution at the optimal moment during the fight makes the showdown tense and exciting. In Breaking Bad, Vince Gilligan uses this method several times. For instance, take the series finale, where we see Walter White preparing some form of gun mechanism before the final battle with his enemies. But the application of that gun mechanism is made clear only at the most crucial point during the fight.

Similar to Jean-Pierre Melville’s Gangster film, Le Samourai (1967), A Colt is My Passport also features a protagonist struggling with existential crises. In one touching scene, Shun plays guitar and sings a melancholy song about love and happiness. During the lyric, “I’m sure the happiness will come soon,” the camera dollies on Kamimura’s face, capturing an expression that speaks volumes about his emotional state of mind. Mina’s character is an excellent addition who enhances the film’s emotional impact. She was born and raised in squalor, where she was constantly reviled and looked down upon. She runs away from that place only to end up in another hellhole, this time working at a dingy motel, where she is frequently harassed and mocked by the customers. Mina is exhausted from running and feels the only thing left for her is dust, the smell of men, and gasoline. She and Kamimura have many commonalities, including a desire to escape and finding happiness in their individual lives.

Even though Kamimura is a bad guy, we find ourselves rooting for him and fearing for his survival since the world presented in the film is replete with worse individuals than him, including gangsters, murderers, double-crossers, and corrupt people. He is an empathetic man who respects women, looks after Shun, and even risks his life to ensure his partner’s survival. Additionally, Joe Shishido’s performance epitomizes coolness, and his personality is so endearing that it is impossible not to like him.

A Colt is My Passport movie links: IMDB, Letterboxd, Rotten tomatoes

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