Actors in
Western cinema may, if they’re lucky, achieve fame for a recurring role in a
particular series of films. Basil Rathbone remains for many the definitive
Sherlock Holmes. Sean Connery will always be Bond, James Bond. And Dirty Harry
is still Clint Eastwood’s most indelible screen incarnation. But such
career-defining roles generally come around only once in a Hollywood film
actor’s career.
Not so in
Japanese cinema, especially during the 1960s and 1970s, when it was common for
an actor to be associated with multiple iconic screen characters. Indeed, for
some performers, it was almost the norm. The amazingly prolific Shintaro Katsu
not only played the blind swordsman-samaritan Zatoichi in 27 films and a
long-running TV series, he also starred in the 16-film Akumyo (or Bad Reputation) series, as well as the Hanzo the Razor trilogy. Action stars
Ken Takakura and Sonny Chiba were similarly renowned for playing more than one
recurring character.
But this
phenomena wasn’t limited to men. Matching her contemporary male peers in serial
stardom was Japan’s greatest female action icon, Meiko Kaji, who starred in
four Female Convict Scorpion films,
two Lady Snowblood films, five Stray Cat Rock films, and two Wandering Ginza Butterfly films. Kaji’s
screen persona was perfectly suited to such movies. Although not physically
imposing, she projected a tensile inner strength that lent credibility to the
strong, independent heroines she portrayed. She could dole out violent
retribution with style and fury, but her characters were never overtly
cruel—and they always adhered to a rigid moral code that included compassion
for the weak and disadvantaged. Despite her astonishing beauty, Kaji (much like
the French actor Alain Delon) never traded on her looks, exuding an emotional
aloofness that seemed to preclude any interest in conventional notions of
screen romance. This enigmatic reserve hinted at a dark sensibility, which,
coupled with her unique combination of femininity and fearlessness, proved
beguiling to film audiences during her heyday, and helps account for the
widespread cult admiration she enjoys to this day.Â
Wandering Ginza Butterfly (1971)
Kaji had
already made a name for herself with several Stray Cat Rock movies for Nikkatsu, but when that studio shifted to
soft-core production in 1971, she immediately switched to Toei. Her first film
for her new studio was Wandering Ginza
Butterfly (1971), in which she plays Nami, a beautiful gambler and ex-girl
gang leader just out of prison after serving time for the murder of a yakuza
kingpin. Back on the streets, she returns to her old haunts in Tokyo’s Ginza
section, where she forms a fast friendship with a charismatic pimp named Ryuji,
gets her a job as a hostess at a posh nightclub, and has a family reunion of
sorts with her uncle, who agrees to let her live in his billiard hall. Nami is
determined to go straight, but eventually finds her good intentions unraveling
in Ginza’s decadent, crime-ridden milieu.