I Am Waiting

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Audience Member A disgraced boxer encounters Yûjirô Ishihara from "Crazed Fruit" wandering at night in the rain and takes her in. She's running from gangsters, who end up being more directly connected to his misfortunes than he initially thinks. A solid, but extremely typical noir flick transported to Japan. Well worth a look for fans of the genre. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review Audience Member I Am Waiting (1957) Also called Ore wa matteru ze This is a nice little Japanese noir movie about two lost souls who meet in the night. It's an early film by director, Koreyoshi Kurahara, who later made The Warped Ones (1960). I personally prefer this one and I love the sad music in it. Joji Shimaki (Yujiro Ishihara) is an X-boxer who now owns a little diner on the waterfront. He's waiting to hear from his brother who is supposed to be buying a ranch in Brazil. He meets a downtrodden Saeko (Mie Kitahara) on the docks. Is she thinking of jumping into the water? He invites her back to his restaurant for some warm noodles. Saeko was a classical opera singer until she got ill and lost her voice. Now she works in a night club as a lounge singer. Saeko tells Joji that she may have killed the younger brother of a Yakuza nightclub owner Shibata (Hideaki Nitani) when he made a pass at her. Joji assures her that she should just wait till the morning. If the man was dead, it should be in the morning newspaper. If not, then she shouldn't worry. Saeko hangs out at the cafe and finds out that this is a favorite hang-out for a lot of people who are down on their luck, including Joji himself, who had killed a man and lost the right to fight in the ring. Somehow all of these characters are inter-related to each other. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/16/23 Full Review s r A good film with a unique plot. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member By 1957, film noir as a genre has long achieved its pinnacle form in Hollywood, and in Japan, although on a smaller scale. Compared with the standard of the time, I AM WAITING is pretty mild stuff, and not a very satisfying film altogether. It doesn't star a charismatic male lead who encounters and who eventually saves the femme fatale from the hands of the evil men. It's about a man who is waiting for his brother to take him to Brazil... The film is largely as impressionistic as its storyline, and only deserves the "noir" title because most scenes are shot at night. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/21/23 Full Review Audience Member A beautiful and powerful little mix of detective mystery, noir, and drama. An ex-boxer and restauranteur saves a woman with suicidal tendencies, only to fall for her and get involved with gangsters. It quickly encompasses several genres but it showcases a simple story with a bit of action and heartfelt emotion. I recognized some of the actors from the other films in the Nikkatsu Noir collection, and this movie is one of the better ones. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/05/23 Full Review Audience Member A story of two damaged souls, an ex-boxer who has had his license stripped from him and a lounge singer whose voice was damaged from illness, who have a chance encounter one night. The ex-boxer, with no reason to stay in japan, has been waiting to hear from his brother who lives in brazil, for over a year, but has heard nothing. The owner of the lounge, a mobster of sorts, comes looking for the singer who still owes him two months of work. This leads to the ex-boxer learning of a connection between his grief and the singers and that the lounge owner may be responsible for his his brother never even making it too South America. I Am Waiting is a Japanese Noir that really spends its time with two characters who are down on their luck. The first half of the film is essentially a companion piece between these two as layers of their past, particularly the boxers, are slowly revealed. Their are some absolutely fantastic compositions through the first half, where the alienation that these characters feel are captured almost perfectly. The second half of the film plays more like a mystery noir as the boxer learns of his brothers fate and tries to find out exactly what happened to him. The strength of the film really lies in the strength of the main character. I also love how the boxer and singer never really fall in love like almost every movie but rather just seek companionship of some kind. Definitely need to check out more Koreyoshi Kurahara. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/17/23 Full Review Read all reviews

I Am Waiting

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