Number 10 Blues: Goodbye Saigon (1975)

[Takuma]

A 1975 Japanese action film shot in Vietnam in the middle of the war. The film was never released because the production company went bust, and was only discovered for the first time a few years ago. It will open in Japanese cinemas later this month!

Directed by Norio Osada, who was one of the screenwriters on Lady Snowblood and Under the Flag of the Rising Sun. The film played for favourable reviews on a number of film festivals in 2013 .

“A story of love and violence takes place in Saigon in 1975, toward the end of the Vietnam War. A Japanese businessman accidentally kills a Vietnamese. He loses his status and wealthy position in Vietnam. A recently finished genre film in a unique setting. To escape from Vietnam, a businessman decides to head north on a military road under battle conditions with his lover Lanh and Taro, who is the half-blood son of an ex-Japanese soldier and a Vietnamese woman. On the road towards liberation or total catastrophe?”

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“As a scriptwriter working with Fukasaku Kinji in the 1970s and 1980s, Norio chose a Vietnamese production company for his feature debut. The film was shot on locations all over Vietnam under real combat conditions during the final stage of the Vietnam War, between December 1974 and April 1975.

Intiated as a cheap B-class action film, a lack of financial resources and the bankruptcy of the production company prevented it from being finished and shown to the public. Many years later, the film was rediscovered at the National Film Center of Japan. After overcoming several difficulties, the film was completed in the Autumn of 2012.”

- http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/en/films/number-10-blues-goodbye-saigon/

English subbed trailer:

Site:

http://number10blues.com/?page_id=19

[One Armed Boxer]

Wow, this is one of those movies were the making of documentary could potentially be more interesting than the feature itself!

Takuma you'll have to let us know your thoughts once you've seen this!

[Takuma]

I saw this yesterday, it's excellent. It's actually much better than the trailer, which doesn't show the plentiful beautiful material shot all around Vietnam.

It's very much a mid 70's Japanese action film with funky soundtrack that resembles the Toei films of the era to plentiful action scenes with gunplay and fist fights. A couple of love scenes with minor nudity are included as well. At the same time however, the authentic material of war time Vietnam gives it a slightly documentaristic feel at times, bringing it a bit closer to some of ATG's funkier films (e.g. Aesthetics of a Bullet, 1973) than, say, Toei action films.

The only flaws are that it could be 10 minutes shorter, and in a few spots it makes an odd story jump that suggest some footage was lost or never shot. It's no big deal though, in fact, it makes the film more exotic considering its background.

The film is spoken in approx 40% English, 40% in Japanese and 20% in Vietnamese.