lasttimeisaw Against Hollywood's mainstream value, Samuel Fuller's vintage L.A. murder mystery gallantly sets off a love triangle where a Caucasian woman falls for an Asian man in lieu of the latter's Caucasian friend, but the nisei has his own battle to fight, concerning the congenital racial bias stigmatized Japanese-American in the wake of WWII. Yes, first of all, there is a murder, a burlesque stripper Sugar Torch (Pall) is gunned down on the main street in the Little Tokyo district, and two detectives Joe Kojaku (Shigeta) and Charlie Bancroft (Corbett) are investigating the case, they are Korean war veterans and best friends, even sharing a snug apartment, their police procedural pans out a bit languorously, but Fuller profiles the enclave's ethnographic traits with a wandering eye, while the meat of the story is concerned with a key witness, Christine "Chris" Downes (Shaw), who paints the portrait of Sugar Torch dressed in a crimson kimono for the preparation of a Japanese-themed act (one can only imagine what technicolor would do justice to the chromatic appeal here). When her own life is in peril after drawing an identikit of the possible killer, Joe and Charlie invite Chris to stay in their apartment, naturally both bachelors become besotted with her, but it is the interracial romance gains an upper hand (Joe is the more refined, sensitive and art-savvy one), which leaves Joe clammed up in a state of guilt of betraying his best friend, as he knows Charlie reckons Chris as the girl of his dreams, and when the truth finally comes out, Joe's inborn inferiority complex reaches a boiling point, moreover, let's not forget a heartless killer is still at large (although a whodunit's allure has seismically eclipsed by a torrid love triangle at that stage), and Fuller fabricates an analogous tie-in between the killer and Joe, which rounds off the story adequately during the annal Japanese pageant in the Little Tokyo.A fly in the ointment is that Fuller insensitively shoves the moral ambiguity to Chris, being the one who is courted by both men, she doesn't refuse Charlie's advance in the first place and acquits herself as if she has no qualm of reciprocating Joe's feelings, then, even egregiously acts oblivious of the fact that it is her deeds drive a wedge between them, and isn't it up to her to clear the air? Of course, such action isn't allowed in Fuller's script. Consequently, audience will find more relish in a Bourbon-tippled Anna Lee, whose worldly counsel including "Love does much, but Bourbon does everything!". A Golden Globe-winning Shigeta seizes upon this rare opportunity vested by this groundbreaking treatment of racial minority and the lingering, deleterious fallout of WWII afflicting on the next generation, thus, breaks the glass ceiling as an Asian leading actor, with his palpitating affection and disarming demeanor, in Fuller's off-the-radar metteur en scène.

Dalbert Pringle Favorite movie quote - "Because you're a meat-head, that's how!" As is the case here with The Crimson Kimono (TCK for short), there are just some Crime/Thrillers out there (especially from the 1950s) that are so hilariously bad that, yes, they're almost good.From its cheap, lurid sleaziness, to its truly terrible violence, to its pure brain-dead dialogue, to its absolutely amateurish direction (courtesy of Samuel Fuller), this film was a literal laugh-riot of some of the most outrageous examples of second-rate movie-making that I've seen in a mighty long time.I mean, things got so downright wacky in TCK's story that during Homicide's investigation into stripper, Sugar Torch's dumbfounding murder, handsome Detective Bancroft actually flashed a photo of the suspected killer to potential witnesses while holding said picture upside-down. (Ha! Spare me!) I guess this was his way of seeing if anyone was really paying attention.With its totally uncool ambiance (set on the gaudy side of L.A.) TCK scraped the absolute bottom of the inter-racial barrel by injecting into its already tangled & mangled story a scorching-hot romance between a Japanese man (a cop) and a Caucasian woman (an artist). (Ooh! How scandalous!) On all counts, TCK absolutely killed me with its utter ineptitude. But, hey, that's exactly where all of its low-budget, one-dimensional charm stemmed from. And, I wouldn't have had it any other way!

BILLYBOY-10 Somebody kills the stripper, two old army buddies who are now cop partners set out to discover whodunit. Sgt pretty boy is a white guy. His buddy is Japanese. Now we have the real plot. The stripper getting killed is just the sub-plot used to tell the story of east meets west.At the beginning of the investigation along comes Chris the female artist, pretty boy falls hard for her and tells everyone he's got it bad and wants wedding bells. Ooopsie. Buddy Japanese pal also falls for her and she falls for him. How to tell pretty boy? Drama ensues and he tells white boy that he and Chris are hot and then more drama as buddy thinks pretty boy is prejudiced but he's not and then Chris tells him he's not but he tosses everything in the suitcase and splits but then they catch the bad guy who killed the stripper but he didn't; some woman who appears out of nowhere did and then the Japanese buddy realizes he was wrong and apologizes to pretty boy but its too late so he and Chris kiss and it's THE END. Whew! Not that bad, guess in 1959 this race/culture thing was very incredibly sensitive and so this was most likely a ground-breaker back then By today's standard though, it's pretty much a soaper.

The_Void The Crimson Kimono is often labelled film noir. I wouldn't agree with this; it has some elements of the genre, but it's clear that director Samuel Fuller had very different intentions for his film. The film is, at its heart, a murder mystery thriller; but more important than this is the relationship between the two central characters and there's a strong anti-racist theme also. The film is set in the Japanese quarter of Los Angeles and the film begins by depicting a murder of a stripper at a club in the area. A pair of detectives, Charlie Bancroft and Joe Kojaku (also very close friends) are called in to investigate and during their investigation, they come across a female painter that turns out to be a key witness in the case; and Charlie falls instantly in love. However, the witness has more of a rapport with Joe; and this creates trouble he believes his race to be an issue, and there's also the problem arising from the fact that his partner has designs on marrying the girl in question.The style of the film is one of the things I liked most about it. It does feature the classic film noir atmosphere, but it's jazzed up a bit and this sets it apart from the rest of the genre. The investigation plot was the most interesting part of the film for me and it flows well during the first half of the film; but the director seems more interested in the relationship between his central characters and unfortunately the film veers off topic on rather a lot of occasions, which spoilt it somewhat for me. The characters themselves are well written and portrayed, and the major ones are interesting in their own right. A big part of the film is devoted to the whole race issue, and this was the least interesting part for me. I've always found this subject to be dull anyway, and the way it is explored here is not particularly interesting (unlike the way it was done in White Dog). Overall, this is certainly an interesting film; Samuel Fuller has deviated from the 'usual' noir path and while I did not like certain elements of the film, it is at least worth a look.