The Crimson Kimono (1959)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Crimson Kimono (1959) – S. Fuller

The Sam Fuller Picture isn’t like your average film.  Somehow his scripts bluntly foreground societal issues that remain implicit or are completely ignored in other films.  As a case in point, the Crimson Kimono zooms in on the Japanese-American experience by including James Shigeta as a homicide detective investigating the murder of a stripper who was recently painted wearing the titular kimono.  Investigations take him and his white partner (and ex-war buddy) to the Little Tokyo section of Los Angeles.  When Shigeta’s character, Joe Kojaku, falls in love with a white witness (and vice versa), Fuller gets to tackle one of his favourite topics, racism, with a special look at how it feels to be an outsider. Things get complicated because the partner also loves the witness -- hence, tension is produced between the two men because of this love triangle.  Fuller leaves the actual detective story aside (although it is finally resolved) to focus on the psychological experience of Kojaku and his relationships with his partner and the witness. Through it all, Kojaku is treated humanistically as a person, not as a symbol of his race or an object for scrutiny – his different culture is accepted by all of the characters and, in the end, he is the only one who perceives himself as different.  All of the others treat him as an ordinary Joe. Fuller, too, is totally supportive of Japanese-Americans and particularly emphasizes their contribution to the war effort in the Forties.  At the same time, he gives us a look at Japanese culture: a Kendo match, a Buddhist memorial ceremony, a festival (with parade), the artistry of dollmakers, and more.  Kojaku even discusses the differences between the Nisei (first generation born in America) and Kibei (born in America but returned to Japan for their schooling before resettling in America) and the problems in dating between them!  So, the merits of the Sam Fuller Picture are many, but don’t choose his films because of their generic frameworks (i.e., the detective story), instead come for the two-fisted didactic discussion.