The Beast to Die – Radiance

Director: Tôru Murakawa
Screenplay: Shoichi Maruyama
Based on a Novel by: Haruhiko Ôyabu
Starring: Yûsaku Matsuda, Takeshi Kaga, Hideo Murota, Asami Kobayashi, Mako Midori
Country: Japan
Running Time: 118 min
Year: 1980
BBFC Certificate: 18

Radiance Films’ latest dive into the underserved corners of Japanese genre cinema is Tôru Murakawa’s The Beast to Die (a.k.a. Yajû shisubeshi), which they’re releasing on Blu-ray in July. Loosely adapted from Haruhiko Oyabu’s novel ‘Yajû shisubeshi’, which had already inspired a 1959 film of the same name, Murakawa’s 1980 take has a neo-noir feel but soon veers off into something colder, more introspective and deeply disturbing. In this way, it leans towards Jim Thompson rather than other, more classical hardboiled authors like Raymond Chandler.

The film centres around Kunihiko Date (Yûsaku Matsuda), a relatively young former war journalist, psychologically troubled by his experiences. Now adrift in Tokyo, he masks his inner turmoil behind a cold, calm exterior. Disillusioned with society and gripped by existential despair, Date embarks on a violent, methodically planned crime spree. He begins by murdering a police officer to obtain a gun, which he swiftly uses to wipe out the gang members running a nearby casino, so he can take their money.

Date then plans a bold, daytime bank robbery. He forces a young accomplice (Takeshi Kaga) to assist him, applying an uncompromising personal philosophy that demands strict adherence to a set of rules—even when those rules lead to horrifying consequences.

Meanwhile, despite his detached nature and commitment to disrupting the natural order, Date forms a tentative connection with Reiko (Asami Kobayashi), who shares his love of classical music and sees glimpses of vulnerability beneath his surface. However, as the psychological toll of his actions mounts, Date begins to unravel.

The Beast to Die is a stylish, unsettling crime drama that lingers in the mind, both that of the film’s protagonist/antagonist on-screen and in the viewer, long after the credits have rolled.

Date’s crimes unfold not in exciting action beats but with a grim authenticity that makes them difficult to watch. The film doesn’t glamorise violence; it presents it as messy, desperate, and emotionally raw.

Despite these bursts of shocking brutality, The Beast to Die is largely a slow burn. Murakawa coolly observes Date from a distance, with carefully composed frames, atmospheric lighting and often long takes. The natural elements are put to good use too, with heavy rain featuring prominently in a couple of key scenes, emphasising the emotional and psychological turmoil within.

Music also plays a striking role in the film, blending jazz, classical, blues/spiritual and even flamenco elements to create a rich, occasionally unsettling soundscape.

Though on the surface, Date is a cold-hearted killer with few redeeming features, enough work is done on the character to keep you following him intensely throughout the film. There’s a glimmer of human connection in the key ‘romantic’ subplot, for instance. This is handled subtly, so as not to clumsily suggest ‘he’s a nice guy, really’. Instead, it provides a narrative device that enriches the character, particularly as the relationship takes a dark twist later on.

As Jordan Harper suggests in an interview on the disc, Date doesn’t seem to believe the violent ideology he spouts; it’s a mask, a set of “rules” he enforces with ruthless consistency until those very rules backfire. His most shocking act of violence is simply the consequence of strictly following his own code. Then, realising what he’s done, Date unravels.

The tonal shift this brings on in the final act is jarring, and I wasn’t 100% sold on it. Matsuda’s performance, so controlled for much of the runtime, suddenly veers into melodramatic territory. While this might align with traditionally heightened Japanese performance styles and reflects the fractured psyche of the character, it feels a little overwrought following the restraint that preceded it.

Blaming Date’s violent tendencies on his experiences as a war reporter feels a little simplistic and overbaked here too. Thematically, the source novel played on post-WWII trauma, but the film updates this, nodding to modern conflicts to explain Date’s fractured psyche. I’d almost prefer his mental state to be caused by something unknown or a general abhorrence of modern society, which is alluded to earlier on.

Date is a man disgusted by a world of conformity—a place where people “live like mice” (as writer Shoichi Maruyama puts it). His rage is a kind of perverse awakening, a refusal to be part of the machinery any longer.

The scenes examining this idea were more effective than the latter, more bombastic sequences, in my opinion, but there are still some incredibly powerful moments in the final act. Most notably, I found the latter scenes with Hideo Murota, who plays a police officer on Date’s tail, to be highly effective. Murota is initially calm yet commanding in the film, providing a grounded counterweight to Date’s chaos. However, as his character faces off against the truly empty soul of the post-snapped killer, his cool exterior dissolves, and he’s left feeling a deep, primal fear.

I thought the coda that caps off the film was boldly ambiguous too.

Overall, whilst I didn’t find the film wholly consistent, The Beast to Die is a strikingly stylish examination of a killer that worms its way into your mind. It’s disturbing, measured and grimly intoxicating.

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