The Rapacious Jailbreaker Blu-ray Review

Radiance Films

Blu-ray Release: May 20, 2025

Video: 2.35:1/1080p/Color

Audio: Japanese LPCM 1.0 Mono

Subtitles: English

Run Time: 97:05

Director: Sadao Nakajima

In the free-for-all chaos after World War II, black marketeer Ueda (Hiroki Matsukata) is robbed of a stash of morphine. He takes his brutal revenge, but is arrested for murder and sentenced to 20 years. He escapes and is caught, but, no matter where they send him, Ueda won't let prison walls stop him. (From Radiance Films’ official synopsis)

A contemporary of Kinji Fukasaku, Sadao Nakajima was another hit-maker for Toei Studios during the ‘70s. Like Fukasaku, he found success across genres, but grew into an influential figure during a wave of popular jitsuroku eiga (true account) yakuza movies. Among these was the prison drama The Rapacious Jailbreaker (Japanese: Datsugoku Hiroshima satsujinshû, 1974), which ended up being the first film in a thematic trilogy, including Nakajima’s controversial Riot at Shimane Prison (Japanese: Bodo Shimane Keimusho, 1975), and Kôsaku Yamashita’s Robber and Arson Murderer (Japanese: Gotô hoka sâtsujin shû; aka: Evil Doers, 1975).

Thanks to Radiance Films’ consistent output, I’ve been mainlining a lot of Toei yakuza films the last couple of years and find that a lot of them feature overly complicated plots built upon common clichés, making them difficult to follow, yet easy to get ahead of. Rapacious Jailbreaker is similar in that it is episodic and that its supporting cast is quite crowded, but a little different, because it generally focuses on Ueda’s single-minded pursuits, instead of elaborate proxy wars. Besides, on-screen text tells us everything we need to know every time a new character is introduced (name, charges, prisoner number, et cetera).

Rapacious Jailbreaker exemplifies Nakajima’s penchant for brutality. Gunshots and shivvings give way to geysers of blood, beatings leave victims covered in welts, and, in case the faux gore wasn’t enough, Ueda at one point finds himself butchering cows, prompting loving close-ups of sloppy viscera. The violence is somewhat tempered by a spry and playful sense of humor (I suppose the use of ‘rapacious’ in the title should have been a clue). Ueda is recaptured when he can’t help but admire himself holding a gun in the mirror of a theater bathroom. Later, he hides from cops in a suit of samurai armor like a Scooby Doo character and is waylaid by food poisoning. There are also a number of throwaway jokes about homosexual prison relationships that are surprisingly non-judgmental for the era.

Star Hiroki Matsukata’s boisterous and often boyish performance magnifies the comedy and tragedy of his eventual descent into depravity and self-destruction. Matsukata was a studio regular and had appeared in Fukasaku’s Battles without Honor or Humanity (Japanese: Jingi naki tatakai, 1974) franchise, unites the three films in the Rapacious Jailbreaker, Riot at Shimane Prison, Robber and Arson Murderer trilogy, and teamed-up with Nakajima the next year for fan favorite The Great Okinawa Yakuza War (Japanese: Okinawa Yakuza sensô, 1976). He later headlined a Nintendo Super Famicom fishing game, Matsukata Hiroki no Super Trawling (1995), and enjoyed a career renaissance in the 2000s working on a series of movies with another maverick of hyper-violent yakuza cinema, Takashi Miike. 

Video

The Rapacious Jailbreaker has never been released outside of Asia and doesn’t seem to have made it to DVD anywhere before this Blu-ray debut. Like most of Radiance’s Toei releases up to this point, the 2.35:1, 1080p transfer was supplied directly by the company as a digital file. There isn’t any information as to if it was a 4K or 2K scan, but the results are in keeping with Radiance’s other Toei releases. Cinematographer Shigeru Akatsuka aims for a raw, naturally-lit look for most of the film and the image quality reflects with chuncky grain and high contrast dynamic levels that blow-out whites and crush blacks. It’s not exactly attractive and can deplete fine detail, but nothing, aside from a pulsing quality during brighter sequences, appears to my eyes to be a compression or authoring mistake, rather what the film is meant to look like. Color quality is very consistent, almost duochromatic at times (peach flesh tones against blue costumes and backgrounds), which is another commonality among Toei BD transfers.

Audio

The Rapacious Jailbreaker is presented in its original Japanese mono and uncompressed LPCM 1.0. The track is largely dialogue-driven and features only slight high volume distortion. The funky, jazzy score was provided by composer Kenjirô Hirose, known for his collaborations with Nakajima, Fukasaku, and other Toei regulars during the ‘70s. The music is a major highlight and exhibits decent range and bass, though the loudest hi-hat hits and tambourine shakes do tend to hiss.

Extras

• Commentary by yakuza film expert Nathan Stuart (2025) – The yakuza movie expert and self-described “Toei Masochist” explores the studio’s history, the history of jitsuroku eiga films, Nakajima’s style and favored themes, Hiroki Matsukata’s larger career, the careers of other cast & crew members, and the supposed true stories that inspired The Rapacious Jailbreaker. 

• Rule Breaker (16:58, HD) – A new visual essay on Nakajima from author, critic, and co-editor of Midnight Eye, Tom Mes, who looks back at the director’s life, his career across genres (including film clips), the development of the jitsuroku eiga genre, and parallels between him and the more famous Fukasaku. 

The images on this page are taken from the Blu-ray and sized for the page. Larger versions can be viewed by clicking the images. Note that there will be some JPG compression.