After the unexpected death of her father in an automobile accident, care-free Misako (Junko KANŌ) is appointed the unlikely president of the family’s prominent shipping company. Despite her inexperience Misako puts forth great effort to learn the business and gradually gains the trust of both her direct subordinate Takeshi (Kenji SUGAWARA) and the many blue-collar workers the company employs (she eats ramen with the drivers and entertains the dispatchers at her home), but trouble is brewing. Misako has been appointed to fail by a hostile board of directors, who scheme to use the new president’s lack of business savvy against her and take over the company.
Independent of the board, suave outsider and nightclub-operating entrepreneur Fujikawa (Hideo TAKAMATSU) is also plotting to take the company, by buying up shares and finding ways to put the firm ever further in his debt. With Misako’s back to the proverbial wall Fujikawa makes an ultimatum – pay up what you owe in five days or lose the company for good. Worse yet, he wants Misako for himself as well!
Just as a desperate act is needed to rescue the company, and Misako’s family legacy, from an almost certain demise an unusual opportunity arises. A construction firm is in need of hazardous help – a dynamite shipment to their current site, a dam project nestled within a treacherous mountain pass. A powerful typhoon is threatening to wreck the project with landslides, and only a shipment through the worst storm in modern Japanese history can save it! Misako’s firm takes the contract and puts its best drivers to work, but Fujikawa won’t let the company slip through his fingers so easily. He heads out along the storm-swept mountain roads, intent on sabotaging the shipper’s efforts by any means necessary.
One of several typhoon-centric features to be produced and released by Daiei at the turn of the decade, 1959’s A Storm Zone is a handsomely mounted suspense drama whose only failing is a lack of distinguishing characteristics. In practice it reminds of any number of studio productions of the time that, through no real fault of their own, have since fallen by the wayside. The convoluted screenplay, the combined work of the prolific Takeo MATSŪRA and director Kunio WATANABE, features as many dramatic ups and downs as one could hope for from such a tale. It also packs some unexpected prescience. Just two months after the film’s release Japan would be struck by the Ise-wan Typhoon, a major peace-time disaster that left thousands dead and prompted a complete overhaul of the country’s disaster response apparatus.
The disaster element may prove A Storm Zone‘s greatest draw for modern viewers, but anyone jonesing for obscure special effects thrills is encouraged to look elsewhere. Daiei’s accomplished (and in this case uncredited) effects artisans constructed a large scale mountainside and a handful of scale shipping trucks for the storm-whipped finale, but setups are few, and serve entirely as incidental support for the human action. The last-ditch demolition – an event that will make or break Misako’s company – is indicative in that it plays out entirely off-screen. A Storm Zone instead opts to show a series of close-ups of the battered cast with the sound of explosions ringing in the distance, a final (and effective) suspense-ratcheting device to keep audiences guessing.
Typical of Daiei productions of the time, the cast is a hefty mix of star power and contract supporting talent who perform precisely as well as would have been expected of them. Second-billed star Junko Kanō carries the picture as Misako, the care-free socialite who finds herself thrust into a situation well beyond her experience. Kanō was a prodigious talent at Daiei for her brief career, appearing in more than fifty productions (!) between 1957 and 1963, and it’s easy to see why. She stands up well against the considerable demands of her role here, which puts her through the usual dramatic ringer (romance! intrigue! suspense!) and a little song and dance as well – they certainly don’t make them like this anymore. Kanō retired young, with her star power at its peak, out of concerns for her own health. Studio lighting had begun to take a toll on her eyesight, and the increased wattage required for color photography (which was becoming increasingly common at Daiei) was only exacerbating the situation. The actress made her exit after 1963’s 「風速七十五米」 Wind Velocity 75 Meters (another Daiei storm drama, appropriately enough), but remains popular more than half a century on. Her films still enjoy theatrical revivals from time to time, and are the recipients of frequent home video reissues as well.
Other notable appearances include rising talent Jirō TAMIYA, who secured a lofty billing (third) for his charismatic supporting turn as one of the company truckers. Tamiya is also the recipient of what minimal special effects flash A Storm Zone has to offer – his truck rolls into a gully during the climactic final act, and summarily explodes. Career heavy Hideo TAKAMATSU lends a tasty mix of suave and sinister to the scheming Fujikawa and provides a nice counterpoint to top-billed good-guy Kenji SUGAWARA, who emerges as the film’s requisite hero during the typhoon finale. The rainy roadside fistfight between the two may well be the highlight of the picture. Standout among the supporting players is Jun TAZAKI, a frequent heavy best known to Western audiences for his many appearances in Tōhō special effects films, and who takes a substantial turn here as the brusque, boisterous and often inebriated driver Kawakami. Tazaki takes to the blue-collar role with a delightful enthusiasm, gleefully needling his boss and sticking up for his younger colleagues when things get tough. His Kawakami is the most colorful and viscerally engaging character A Storm Zone has to offer.
Veteran director Kunio Watanabe was in the third decade of his long career by the time of A Storm Zone‘s production, having entered the industry as an assistant director in the latter 1920s, and he takes to the material with confidence, if little flourish. The style is relatively dry throughout, but punctuated with wrought melodrama along the way (an obvious, ostentatious score from popular composer and pianist Eiichi YAMADA accents the latter perfectly). In the end A Storm Zone‘s brand of corporate intrigue thrills is never especially compelling (though they laid some of the groundwork for better iterations at the studio, like Yasuzō MASUMURA’s 「黒の試走車#映画」 Black Test Car), but in Watanabe’s hands the film still makes for a capable entertainment.
「暴風圏」 A Storm Zone is available on Region 2 DVD from Kadokawa. The release features a nice widescreen transfer for the film and includes a trailer as well as a gallery of production stills, but offers no English language support.
