Ironfinger (1965)

Japan meets 007

Ironfinger was such a pleasantly surprising film, the Japanese tend to have a good track record for Bondsplotation and this is no exception. I'd honestly say it's a much better film than most of the Connery outings and this one even stars a later Bond girl to boot. The title of this film is actually 100 Shot, 100 Killed, Ironfinger was more of a translator's joke to more closely associate it with the James Bond series that it's a parody of.

After being mistaken for an Interpol agent, a man who was just supposed to go on vacation gets mixed up in a war between two gangs intent on winning the favour of a notorious arms dealer.

For those of you who read my Godzilla reviews know I'm not a fan of Jun Fukuda's work on the series, nor his Star Wars venture The War in Space, I am however a big fan of his other works, the man clearly has a talent for mad-cap action and Ironfinger is just another film I can add to his repertoire of great films. Funny, inventive and full of wit, it's hard not to love its madness.

The whole idiot accidentally becomes Hero trope is nothing new, I'll admit. But it's played off in a fantastic way befitting of Fukuda's manic and inventive directional techniques, combined with a superbly written screenplay by Kihachi Okamoto and Michio Tsuzuki that balances the playful tone with a much more menacing and serious threat looming overhead with a deadly gang war with a poor tourist caught in the middle.

It's got everything you could want from a Japanese take on James Bond, the action, the gadgets, the humour, the girls, the partial nudity, the seemingly indestructible henchman and a likeable lead to boot, all presented in a nice mad cap Japanese concoction that should satisfy the most die-hard of Bond fans.

Akira Takarada is cast against his usual type of more buttoned-down archetypes into one of a bumbling fool that effortlessly switches between speaking Japanese, French and English with such outstanding effort, it can't be easy. Mie Hama stars as the film's female lead, eventually going on to play Kissy Suzuki in You Only Live Twice, she gets way more to do here than she does in her later official Bond film. It's kinda sad when a knockoff does that better than the series it's knocking off. Other familiar faces include Ichirô Arishima, Susumu Kurobe, Chōtarō Tōgin and of course, Akihiko Hirata playing the film's villainous henchman.

The score by Masaru Satō is genuinely good fun, it combines his usual trappings with a fun dose of John Barry-esque motifs. There's even a killer theme song to boot although not quite on the same level as some Bond numbers, it's catchy enough to stick with you.

Overall, Ironfinger is another fab film from Jun Fukuda, up there with the likes of ESPY and The Secret of the Telegain in terms of sheer quality mixed with brilliant storytelling. I'd easily watch more of this sort of stuff from Fukuda and thankfully there's a sequel.

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