The Hoodlum Priest
1967
84 minutes
Overview
The first film in the 2 part series about Ryuzen, a renegade martial-arts priest who, in addition to breaking all the commandments against sex and gambling, opens his own gambling den in direct defiance of the local yakuza boss. Exciting action and a twisty plot this movie breaks new barriers in Japanese cinema. Katsu Shintaro is superb in one of his better non-Zato Ichi roles as he fights off the advances of a love-lorn woman and risks his life to defeat the powerful gambling boss who has a stranglehold on the town.
Top Cast
Shintarō Katsu
Ryuzen
Mayumi Ogawa
Mikio Narita
Kayo Mikimoto
Naoko Kubo
Jun Tatara
Hōsei Komatsu
Ryūtarō Gomi
Yoshio Kaneuchi
Fumio Watanabe
Shōsaku Sugiyama
Ikkei Tamaki
Yukio Horikita
Akira Shiga
Jun Katsumura
Takeshi Yabuuchi
Sumao Ishihara
Jun Fujikawa
Hiroyoshi Nishioka
Eijirō Yamaoka
Gen Kuroki
Yutaro Ban
Masayoshi Kikuno
Tadashi Iwata
Kenichi Kagami
Masako Tomura
Jun Ōsugi
Taizô Sengoku