By a Man's Face Shall You Know Him
1966 Japanese yakuza film
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
By a Man's Face Shall You Know Him (Japanese: 男の顔は履歴書, Hepburn: Otokonokao wa rirekisho; lit. 'A Man’s Face Is His Personal History')[4] is a Japanese film directed by Tai Kato in 1966. It is also known under the title History of a Man's Face.[5]
.jpg)
| By a Man's Face Shall You Know Him | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||
| Japanese name | |||||
| Kanji | 男の顔は履歴書 | ||||
| |||||
| Directed by | Tai Kato | ||||
| Screenplay by |
| ||||
| Produced by | Yoshitoshi Masumoto | ||||
| Starring | |||||
| Cinematography | Tetsuo Takaha[1] | ||||
| Edited by | Iwao Ishii[1] | ||||
| Music by | Hajime Kaburagi[1] | ||||
Production company | |||||
Release date |
| ||||
Running time | 89 minutes[3] | ||||
| Language | Japanese[1] | ||||
Plot
When a man is brought to the hospital where Dr. Amamiya is working, the latter recognises the patient and recalls previous times they met: firstly during World War II, and later when the man owned a market and South Korean gangsters were taking over the entire area.
Cast
- Noboru Ando as Dr. Amamiya
- Ichiro Nakatani as Choi[4]
- Sanae Nakahara
- Juzo Itami
- Akemi Mari as Li Keishun[6]
- Hiroshi Fujioka
- Yoshiko Kayama
- Bunta Sugawara
- Ryohei Uchida
- Kanjuro Arashi as Nakamura[7]
Home media
The film was released on Blu-ray in the United Kingdom by Radiance Films on 26 February 2024.[8] It was released in North America by Film Movement on March 25, 2025, as part of a two film set titled Two Faces of Tai Kato, alongside I, the Executioner.[9]
Critical reception
By a Man's Face Shall You Know Him was well-received in Japan by the country's various cinema clubs, placing well in their top films of the year lists.[10]
Reviewing the Blu-ray release of the film, Kat Ellinger praises the film as a "tense, poignant portrayal of post-war class strife and masculinity in crisis". She also praises Ando's performance and states his casting "adds a classic yakuza flavour to a film which otherwise betrays low-budget exploitation film conventions by untypically dealing in political themes."[11]
In his encyclopedia of Japanese gangster films Gun and Sword, Chris D. rates the film three and a half stars out of four, calling it "an intense, pared-to-the-bone melodrama".[12] It was also included by Jasper Sharp in a list of 10 great Japanese gangster films for the BFI.[13]
Alexander Jacoby was more critical of the film, seeing the violence of the film as taking away from a potentially interesting study of interracial relations in postwar Japan.[14]