Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Ostensibly a murder mystery but more a romantic drama with strong social overtones, "The Crimson Kimono" comes armed with noble intentions and the stylistic panache you associate with director- writer Samuel Fuller, but not much in the way of a story.A stripper named Sugar Torch is gunned down one night on a busy Los Angeles street. Detective Sgt. Charlie Bancroft (Glenn Corbett) and his partner Joe Kojaku (James Shigeta) develop a lead with the help of a young artist named Chris (Victoria Shaw). Both men also develop strong feelings for Chris, which leads to sparks and considerable misunderstandings after she makes her decision.In a DVD doc that comes with this movie, director Curtis Hanson notes that this "fits in no genre except the Sam Fuller genre," which is a great description. "The Crimson Kimono" starts with a typical Fuller bang, a big brassy stripper doing her act and then walking into a dressing-room ambush. The killing doesn't really make sense, either as it goes down or when you think about it after the movie is over, but it makes an impression, which is why Fuller was Fuller.The problem of the murder isn't only its incoherence, but the way it is swept under the rug so soon in favor of a social-issues drama which ostensibly deals with racism but is really about a guy his partner correctly describes at one point as a "meathead." At one point, we hear Bancroft even say "Nobody cares who killed that tramp," which is a heckuva line from a homicide detective except it fits with the mood of the film.Corbett and Shigeta make for a sturdy pair in their film debuts, so much so we care more about their issues as the story develops than we do about any progress they make on the case. Too much time is spent on a secondary character, Mac (Anna Lee), who drinks, smokes, and dispenses enough folky wisdom about art and love we come to understand that she's basically Sam in a dress. Lovers of the quintessential Fuller argot will have a field day here: "I'll have to tap her for a raincheck." "You tackle Rembrandt at the school and I'll shortstop Shuto." "You believe that eyewash?" All the above lines are from Kojaku, who seems like the last person to suffer a big emotional crisis by suddenly discovering he's a Japanese- American. But he does, because it's that kind of movie.Fuller fans will appreciate the film's dynamics at play, the way he challenges the audience by setting up a potential romance between Bancroft and Chris and then pushing the race buttons once he's got you thinking you're all assimilated. It's a strange sort of racial- issues story in that none of the white characters seem to have serious hang-ups. Fuller did like to complicate racial issues in his movies, but the curves that worked so well in "Shock Corridor" kind of flop here.Sam Leavitt's cinematography captures a somewhat hallucinatory Los Angeles at night, with smoky nimbi hanging over characters as they prowl lonely alleyways and pool halls. As a police procedural, "Crimson Kimono" has the right atmosphere.Liking the atmosphere, the characters, and the tangy Fuller spirit is not enough when the story doesn't connect. In the end, you are left with a film about failure to communicate that itself doesn't really communicate much of anything other than the wrongness of jumping to conclusions and the need for a good mystery to care more than a little at the end as to whodunit.

I remember seeing The Crimson Kimono when I was 12 years old when it was playing on the bottom half of a double bill back in the days they had those. I cannot remember the feature film, but this independent production distributed by Columbia never left my mind.It was the civil rights era so the time was right for one of the first interracial love stories to reach the screen. Glenn Corbett and James Shigeta are a pair of LAPD homicide detectives on the trail of a murderer who shot stripper Gloria Pall right in the middle of the street after running her down.This film is set in the art world, art of many kinds and a key witness played by Victoria Shaw is an artist who gives a better than normal police sketch of a man who was associated with Pall. Problems arise when both these cops fall in love with Shaw. Corbett assumes a kind of proprietary claim, but she wants Shigeta.As for Shigeta he's a tormented soul because he and Corbett go back to the Korean War and a blood transfusion from Shigeta saved Corbett's life. He also suspects prejudice for the first time in Corbett and the racial barriers loom in size for him. No doubt during World War II his family may well have been interred and that has to play into his psyche as well. There's a nice performance by Anna Lee in this as a rather worldly sophisticated member of the arts community who looks on Shaw as a kind of protégé. Lee was a member in good standing of the John Ford stock company, but he never cast her in a role like this.Samuel Fuller directed this on a dime, but he made that dime count with some nice location shooting in the Little Tokyo area of Los Angeles. There are some nice glimpses of the Japanese-American culture that most of us rarely see.The Crimson Kimono is a fine piece of work and Fuller and his cast deserve all the kudos we can muster.

Stealing scenes on Main St. in LA and set decorating with things from home Sam Fuller puts together a mildly suspenseful thriller involving a stripper, tai kwon doe and the underlying theme of racial bias in The Crimson Kimona. The acting is a touch wooden but the dynamic between detectives played by Glenn Corbett and James Shigeta is filled with unexpected twists and questions about perception that Fuller blends firmly into the mix.Stripper Sugar Torch is gunned down in uniform on the streets of LA by an unknown assailant. Detective team Charlie Bancroft and Joe Kojaqu are assigned to the case with both falling for Christine (Joanna Shaw) an artist involved in the investigation and also a target. As the case proceeds a rift between Bancroft and Kojagu over Christine with inferences of bigotry takes center stage. Kimono has Fuller's usual threadbare set and design look (supplemented by some nifty camera movement) where all expenses are spared but it is his his pulpish sensibility and provocative script addressing the spectra of inherent racism in society then coupling it to the solving of the murder to bring about its denouement that keeps the film taut most of the way.

Simon Fuller (The Big Red One, White Dog) opens his film with Sugar (Gloria Pall) running away from a gunman, her 39 inch chest bouncing in a bra. Too late, he is successful, and so begins a film noir with two detectives Charlie (Glenn Corbett) and Joe (James Shigeta - Takagi in Die Hard) in hot pursuit. Both Corbett and Shigeta made their acting debuts in this film.This is Fuller in his prime, and it makes for an exciting detective story, mixing Japanese and Korean cultures and customs in Los Angeles in the period.Anna Lee, who played Lila Quartermaine on "General Hospital" and "Port Charles," really stole the show when she appeared on screen.In the midst of the investigation, both detectives fall in love with the same woman (Victoria Shaw). Race comes to the forefront in a dramatic way.Filmed against the backdrop of Little Tokyo and a Japanese street festival, it was an excellent film.