Fuller wrote, directed, and produced the picture, his 13th in that capacity, and it\u2019s nestled snugly between the genre triumphs of Pickup on South Street<\/em> and Forty Guns<\/em> and the later, cuckoo-bananas likes of Shock Corridor<\/em> and the aforementioned Naked Kiss<\/em>. By this point he had made Columbia a fair amount of money by keeping his budgets low and his subject matter lurid, though studio head Harry Cohn was skeptical about this one\u2019s chances for success, due to the centering of (gasp) an interracial romance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n True to form, he goes about that element in a roundabout manner. The focus, at least initially, is on police detectives Joe Kojaku (James Shigeta, later to achieve screen immortality as Mr. Takagi in Die Hard<\/em>) and Charlie Bancroft (Glenn Corbett). They\u2019re investigating the murder of Sugar Torch; that investigation leads them to Christine (Victoria Shaw), an artist tangentially involved in the case. Joe and Charlie aren\u2019t just partners \u2014 they\u2019re best friends and roommates, and apparently also share a type, since first Charlie and then Joe develop A Thing for Christine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In those early scenes, The Crimson Kimono<\/em> plays very much like a police procedural in the Naked City<\/em> mold, albeit with Fuller\u2019s trademark hard-edged dialogue and baked-in cynicism (\u201cNobody cares who killed that tramp,\u201d says a cop of the killing). But even in those preliminary passages, Fuller has more on his mind than clues and leads; the setting is the Little Tokyo district of L.A., and he addresses the story\u2019s potential Orientalism from the jump, in both the Asian-American police detective character and his responses to the white cops around him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n His approach to the interracial romance is similarly refreshing. He doesn\u2019t pretend that the cultural divide is not an issue \u2014 it\u2019s directly addressed in dialogue \u2014 but it\u2019s never just <\/em>about that. Watch how carefully he crafts the different dynamics, subtly conveying who\u2019s in control in each relationship, how Charlie takes charge, perhaps too aggressively, when he\u2019s attempting to court Christine, yet she seems the more dominant component of the pairing with Joe. (Perhaps they both default to that, due to her whiteness; perhaps it\u2019s something more.) Ultimately, Fuller seems to feel as his characters do: that the more concerning aspect of this attraction is not their racial differences, but the fact that his pal Charlie liked her first. And the bond of friendship matters much more than arbitrary racial concerns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By the time all of this is coming to a head in the third act, it\u2019s become sort of comical that Fuller cares so little about actually solving the crime. He does so, of course, but by that point, it almost feels like a box to check \u2014 and though procedurals of this era frequently (and thankfully) waste little time with resolution, typically slapping on the cuffs and moving straight into \u201cTHE END\u201d and a cast card, he keeps the scene going, to wrap up the relationships, which are all he, and we, have come to care about anyway. It\u2019s typical of how the filmmaker does business, getting all sentimental about a story that began with a dead stripper in the middle of the street. But that\u2019s Fuller for you, mixing luridness and purity, exploitation and poetry, with as much care and attention paid to all.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The Crimson Kimono” is streaming on Tubi<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/crimson-still-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Even more than the standard issue films noir<\/em>, which marinated in the darkness of America after WWII, Fuller\u2019s film is heavy with the weight of the postwar Asian-American psyche. We have scenes set, not even necessary to the narrative, in military cemeteries and neighborhood Buddhist temples and local parades; he\u2019s bothering to set the scene here, and while there\u2019s a slight sense of outsider gawking, his approach feels like a genuine attempt to burrow into, and understand, this world, when most filmmakers of the era were simply using such locations as window dressing.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n