:Take Aim at the Police Van

• Michitaro Mizushima as Daijirô Tamon
• Mari Shiraki as Tsunako Andô
• Misako Watanabe as Yûko Hamajima
• Shinsuke Ashida as Jûbei Hamajima
• Ryôhei Uchida as Kuji
• Akira Hisamatsu as Masaki
• Shôichi Ozawa as Gorô Kashima

The Nikkatsu Company conceived Take Aim at the Police Van as a borderless action film, a studio subgenre with internationalized characters and setting. Contract director Seijun Suzuki had previously worked mainly on pop song films, a youth subgenre in which the films were built around an already popular song, and yakuza films with an occasional film noir bent.{{cite web|last=Stephens|first=Chuck|title=Eclipse Series 17: Nikkatsu Noir|publisher=The Criterion Collection|url=https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1216|date=August 2009|access-date=2009-09-24}} It also marked the beginning of his practice of co-writing his films.{{cite journal|last=Weisser|first=Thomas|year=1998|title=The Films of Seijun Suzuki|journal=Asian Cult Cinema|volume=21|p=47|publisher=Vital Books}} Leading man Michitaro Mizushima had also starred in Suzuki's Underworld Beauty two years earlier. He was atypical of borderless action films by virtue of his age, forty-eight at the time, as they typically featured Nikkatsu's younger stars such as Yujiro Ishihara and Akira Kobayashi.

Take Aim at the Police Van was released in Japan by the Nikkatsu Company on January 27, 1960.{{cite web|script-title=ja:１３号待避線より その護送車を狙え|publisher=Kinema Junpo Movie Database|url=http://www.kinejun.jp/cinema/id/22897|lang=ja|access-date=2009-09-10|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111007222307/http://www.kinejun.jp/cinema/id/22897|archive-date=2011-10-07}} It was subsequently released in a five-film DVD box set, titled Nikkatsu Noir, in North America on August 25, 2009, under The Criterion Collection's Eclipse label. The set focuses on noir-themed Nikkatsu Action films and also includes I Am Waiting (1957), Rusty Knife (1958), Cruel Gun Story (1964) and A Colt Is My Passport (1967) with liner notes by film historian Chuck Stephens.{{cite web|last=Erickson|first=Glenn|author-link=Glenn Erickson|title=Eclipse Series 17: Nikkatsu Noir|publisher=DVD Talk|url=http://www.dvdsavant.com/s2988nikk.html|date=August 13, 2009|access-date=2009-09-10}}

The A.V. Club{{'}}s Noel Murray felt the film holds up against contemporary Hollywood film noir. Rating it less abstract than Seijun Suzuki's films of a few years later, he highlighted its vim and social candor and named it "[a testament] to how artists pumping out quickie exploitation product can often work in truths about their times that prestige filmmakers can't."{{cite news|last=Murray|first=Noel|title=Eclipse Series 17: Nikkatsu Noir|newspaper=The A.V. Club|url=https://www.avclub.com/eclipse-series-17-nikkatsu-noir-1798206832|date=September 2, 2009|access-date=2009-09-10}}

Has been shown on the Turner Classic Movies show 'Noir Alley' with Eddie Muller.

{{Reflist}}

• [https://www.criterion.com/films/2957 Original trailer] at The Criterion Collection
• {{IMDb title|0054325}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20111007222307/http://www.kinejun.jp/cinema/id/22897 Take Aim at the Police Van] {{in lang|ja}} at the Kinema Junpo Movie Database

{{Suzuki}}

Category:1960s Japanese-language films

Category:Films directed by Seijun Suzuki

Category:Nikkatsu films

Category:Films with screenplays by Shinichi Sekizawa

Category:1960s Japanese films

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