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Taki (Akira Kobayashi) is a drifter who doesn't need much to be happy
other than his trusted guitar ... but he's also a good fighter who beats
up some of boss Akitsu's (Nobuo Kaneko) thugs. Akitsu though is a clever
man, so instead of punishing Taki, he offers him a job as one of his chief
enforcers - and after quite some hesitation Taki agrees as long as he's
not employed as a common bully. Only gradually does he realize what he's
gotten into, especially when he sees how Akitsu punishes his own sister
(Sanae Nakahara) for marrying the wrong man (Yuzo Kiura), punishment that
includes ruining her livelyhood, rape and eventually even murder. During
a drug run, one of Akitsu's other thugs, George (Jo Shishido) recognizes
Taki, he's an ex-cop who has actually shot dead his partner during a raid.
But rather than snitching on him, George challenges him to a duel - which
is delayed again and again, but during all these delays, Taki and George
become almost friends. But that said, neither will back out of the duel.
Too bad then that for their next drug run, Akitsu has already hired a
hitman to just kill them both ... The Rambling Guitarist
is certainly no movie that tries to reinvent cinema, rather it's a very
solid gangster movie that closely follows its genre's formula, but does so
in a likeable way, has its action and drama in all the right places, and
even if it doesn't essentially surprise the audience, it's decently enough
paced to keep them in their seats, and has a loveable vintage coolness to
it that's appealing even today. No greatness, but definitely worth a
watch.
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