[Editor's Note: those of us here at LFM tend to love the 'Cold War lifestyle' - the spies, the bikinis, the shiny orbiting satellites and dry martinis. This is the first of an occasional series from LFM contributor Steve Greaves taking us back to that altogether tastier era.]
By Steve Greaves. Your mission, should you accept to view it:
“A Kiss From Tokyo”, Theatrical Trailer (1964) – Yuki 7 dashes around the world in hot pursuit of the tantalizingly tricky Diamond Eye, who is stealing parts and plans and leaving behind a path of murdered scientists in her quest to build a missile inside her volcanic lair …
OK, it’s not really from 1964, but is in fact vintage today.
I had the pleasure of seeing this faux-trailer and meeting Yuki 7 creator and artist Kevin Dart late last year. His work and more from the Fleet Street Scandal art duo opened at the very ginchy Nucleus Gallery in not-too-scenic Alhambra, CA.
As a lover of all things mid-century and of spy-dom in particular, what can I say about the Yuki 7 trailer? It’s stylistically satisfying at every level. Hits all the vital notes needed to evoke the world of Bond and far beyond.
The Japanese elements throughout all the Yuki 7 art make for an ultra-hip edge, since so much film and design of that period was reflected in Asian cop and spy films, which often out-did more accessible American and British spy fare in terms of cheesy melodrama, space-age sets and generally self-conscious kitsch factor – call it the Gojira quotient.
Japanese G-men in boxy sedans and construction-helmeted henchmen guarding missile silos abounded then – as they do here – in the savvy Mr. Dart’s (along with co-director Stephane Coedel) motion picture equivalent of his devastatingly cool Yuki 7 film posters … all of which are for fictitious action-girl spy films I would watch if they existed.
‘64 is the perfect year to tie this concept to, when brims were extra stingy and the whole cold war spy phenomenon was just beginning to gel as it’s own entertainment genre – separate and distinct from earlier gumshoe and cop fare that lacked the visual possibilities afforded by easy international travel by jet and the booming space age.
So check the ‘trailer’ out above … I can’t wait for the sequel.
Interesting trailer!
I’ve written this elsewhere but I think one of the (many) reasons we haven’t seen any genuinely good/pro-U.S. movies about the current war(s) is that, given the people we’re fighting and the environment in which we’re fighting them, the conventions of the genre would have to be thrown out the window. The femme fatale? She’ll have to be covered from head to toe to fit in. A spy sneaking into a terrorist compound to get the lay of the land? Nope. Now they’ll just fly UAVs around the area. There’s nothing sexy or suave about this stuff.
Of course, a talented writer could probably figure something out.
Love mid century modern. The style, the freedom, the philosophy, the prosperity. Playboy before Hugh Hefner sold out to the Postmoderns. Science fiction before the Malthusian backlash.
Perhaps you should have mentioned “The Incredibles” as the best retro-modernist movie to date, but I’d love to see more of “Yuki 7″.
I don’t know much about this genre, but Steve Greaves’ concise and delicious writing style have aroused my curiousity for sure.