Judging solely by the poster for The Crimson Kimono, you'd be reasonable to assume this Samuel Fuller directorial effort will be using its Japanese lead character, Detective Joe Kojaku (James Shigeta), for exploitative means rather than actually exploring Kojaku as a human being. However, posters can be deceiving. Remember how that one guy with a skull tattoo on his face was plastered all over every 47 Ronin poster only for him to appear in the movie for ten seconds? Similarly, The Crimson Kimono has far more to offer than its poster suggests. Not only does it provide a far more layered portrait of a Japanese character than you'd expect in American cinema circa. 1959 but it's also just a well-made noir tale in its own right.
