Red Peony Gambler

Ryuko is raised in Kumamoto by her father, a gambler, after losing her mother as a small child. When she is eighteen her father is killed in a back street. Ryuko breaks up the family’s gang and sets out for revenge, carrying the wallet the killer left behind. Five years later she is a gambler who moves around the country and is known by the red peony tattooed on her shoulder. With the help of three people she meets on the road she finally finds the man who killed her father. The story puts a woman at the centre of a yakuza film and builds its violence like a ceremony. Sumiko Fuji and Ken Takakura appear in Kosaku Yamashita’s ninety eight minute Japanese film, completed in 1968.