The Crimson Kimono

Samuel Fuller's crime film, set in Los Angeles. A stripper is killed in the street. Two detectives take the case: Charlie and Joe. They fought together in Korea and are close friends who share a house. Joe is a Japanese American. The case takes them to Little Tokyo, where they meet a woman named Chris. Both like her. She chooses Joe. The real subject is what follows. Joe cannot carry the relationship; he believes his friend pities him and that the world will not accept them, and his response grows steadily more aggressive. The film's hard idea is that racism here does not only come from outside; it has become what a man thinks about himself. The structure was extremely unusual for its time: in 1959 it was rare for a Hollywood film to show a relationship between an Asian man and a white woman without obstruction. Fuller shot it in Little Tokyo on real locations and placed the neighbourhood's ceremonies inside the narrative. An important example for anyone who likes American cinema on its way into the 1960s and films that stand bravely within a genre. For a viewer expecting a classic procedural, the murder case is only the frame; the real matter is the relationship between three people.