Kanto Wanderer

Kanto Wanderer (関東無宿, Kantō mushuku, aka The Woman Sharper and Kanto Vagabonds) is a 1963 Japanese yakuza film directed by Seijun Suzuki and starring Akira Kobayashi, Chieko Matsubara, Daizaburo Hirata and Hiroko Itō. It was a programme picture produced by the Nikkatsu Company to fill out the second half of a double bill with Shohei Imamura's The Insect Woman. The film was based on a novel by Taiko Hirabayashi and had been previously adapted to the screen as Song from the Underworld (1956) by Suzuki's mentor, Hiroshi Noguchi. The story involves Katsuta, a yakuza member who falls in love and is torn between giri (duty) and ninjo (humanity). The Kanto of the title refers to a large plain on which Tokyo is located.