Abashiri Prison

Abashiri Prison sits in the coldest place in Japan. It is a place with a bad name. Tachibana is a young yakuza, inside for raiding a rival family. One day two men escape. He is one of them and the other is a small time criminal. They are handcuffed to each other. The two of them hate each other. In this climate, though, nobody survives alone. To avoid capture they have to move together. Snow, blizzard and hunger stay on them the whole way. The film is the first entry in a long running Toei series. That series made Ken Takakura one of the biggest stars in Japan. Teruo Ishii both wrote and directed it. Ken Takakura and Kōji Nanbara appear in the ninety two minute film, a Japanese production Ishii finished in 1965.