The Crimson Kimono
With Victoria Shaw, Glenn Corbett, James Shigeta.
US, 1959, 35mm, black & white, 81 min.
Among Fuller's gentlest and beautifully minor films is The Crimson Kimono, which begins, in explosively Fuller fashion, as a lurid crime thriller before dramatically transforming into a remarkably nuanced and thematically progressive drama of post-WWII race anxieties. Far ahead of its time in his direct address of the complexities of race identity in Fifties America, The Crimson Kimono centers upon two Korean War veteran detectives and friends, Nisei and Caucasian, in pursuit of a vengeful killer whose tracks lead through the seedy underbelly of downtown L.A. and its historic Japanese American neighborhood. Dramatically filmed on the streets of L.A.'s vibrant Little Tokyo district, The Crimson Kimono is a fascinating document of the Asian American experience that ruffled feathers with its frank and non-hand-wringing depiction of interracial romance.
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
Pickup on South Street
The Crimson Kimono
The Naked Kiss
Underworld U.S.A.
The Baron of Arizona
Merrill's Marauders
House of Bamboo
Fixed Bayonets!
Forty Guns
Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street
A Fuller Life
Run of the Arrow
Street of No Return
The Steel Helmet
The Big Red One
Shock Corridor
Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made
