Suit Yourself or Shoot Yourself!: The Loot

The Loot is Kurosawa's third entry in the Suit Yourself or Shoot Yourself series, a cute TV-born film series sporting Sho Aikawa as a spirited detective. While these films are hardly representative of Kurosawa's oeuvre, they are a lot more fun than they have any right to be, and The Loot is probably my favorite of the bunch. Getting your hands on them may be tricky though.

Yuji and his partner take on an assignment to locate an old man. When they finally find him he runs away from them. It'll be the last thing he ever does because he gets a heart attack and drops dead. Yuji doesn't get paid, but he does inherit the man's possessions. Among them is a clue to a buried treasure, 50 million yen pocket money Yuji can surely put to good use.

Aikawa is a lot of fun here, other actors like Osugi are also an asset. The shorter runtime helps to make everything a bit more palatable and even though the film's TV roots are obvious, The Loot does sport some slight cinematic qualities. It's not what you call essential cinema, but if you want a better idea of Kurosawa as a director, give this one a shot.