Tachibana Shinichi (Takakura Ken) is serving a three-year stretch at Abashiri Prison in Hokkaido - the Siberia of Japan. On work details he is cuffed to Gonda (Nanbara Hiroshi), a five-time loser and all-round bad character. He gets into beefs with Gonda and a yard boss, Yoda (Abe Toru), but generally keeps his nose clean. The warden (Tamba Tetsuro) even takes a liking to him and put in request for Tachibana to see his sick mother.
Then, when Tachibana only has six months to serve on his sentence, Yoda, Gonda and other cons make an escape attempt, jumping off a prison truck and running into the woods. Still chained to Gonda, Tachibana is forced to go along. When the warden hears that his model prisoner has gone missing, he feels betrayed - and when he learns that Gonda has attacked his wife, he becomes enraged - and vows to hunt the pair until he finds them, dead or alive.
The chase that ensues was modeled on The Defiant Ones - the 1958 Stanley Kramer prison break movie starring Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier - but set in, not the sunny South, but Hokkaido in the dead of winter. In one hightlight scene, Tachibana and Gonda pump for their lives on a railroad handcar flying down a snow-covered Hokkaido mountain, with the warden, on another handcar, in hot pursuit, banging away at them with a shotgun. In another Gonda and Tachibana have the desperate idea of cutting the chain that binds them by lying next a rail as a train passes over, with Tachibana on the track, Gonda on the shoulder.
In addition to the action a big draw for contemporary audiences was the theme song “Abashiri Bangaichi” (Abashiri Prison), sung by the husky-voiced Takakura - a Japanese companion piece to Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” that become a well-remembered hit and was featured in all ten of the series episode helmed by Ishii.
Another was the performance of Arashi Kanjuro as an elderly con who suddenly reveals himself as the legendary oyabun Onitora - and proves that he is a fighter still deserving his fearsome reputation. In films since 1927 and a major period drama star for decades, Arashi became a fixture in the Abashiri Bangaichi series.
The film became a major hit and propelled Takakura to superstardom. Ishii went on to make ten installments and after the tenth film, Abashiri Bangaichi - Fubuki Tosoo (Abashiri Prision - Battle in the Driving Snow), Ishii turned over the reins to other Toei contract directors, who filmed another eight installments, ending in 1972.
Mark Schilling