Eight Hours of Terror

A train accident closes the line and the passengers are to be carried on by bus. The bus will take the mountain road; it is narrow, winding and long. The passengers are mixed: a teacher, a journalist, a member of parliament, a nurse, two businessmen and a woman said to be a prostitute. On the way the bus picks up two more. Then it comes out that these two are bank robbers. Along the road it is not clear who will do what, and in the moment of danger everyone's real bearing shows. Seijun Suzuki directs. It was made at the Nikkatsu studio and is among his early works. The structure is a journey narrative; it takes place almost entirely on the bus and along the road. The matter it works at is social hypocrisy; the characters who appear respectable are the first to fall apart in danger. That theme was common in Japanese cinema of the period and had to do with how postwar society saw itself. It was made cheaply and quickly; Suzuki was producing fast for the studio in those years. It is short and direct; no side path is taken. The formal excesses of his later films are not here; the telling is largely classical. Who it is for: anyone curious about Japanese genre cinema and early Suzuki. Who it is not for: the characters are types, the resolution simple, and the technical quality carries the limits of its time.