The Rapacious Jailbreaker is a 1974 crime drama from Japanese director Sadao Nakajima (A Savage Beast Goes Mad, Jeans Blues: No Future and The Seburi Story). The film stars Kōju Meguro aka Hiroki Matsukata (13 Assassins, The Shogun Assassins and Hanzo the Razor), Tomisaburô Wakayama (Black Rain, Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance and Lone Wolf and Cub: Babycart in the Land of Demons), Naoko Ôtani (Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Zatoichi at Large and Kitsune no kureta akanbô), and Tsunehiko Watase (The Incident, Heaven and Earth and A Strange Beast Goes Mad). 

The president of Toei, Shigeru Okada, decided he wanted a prison break film similar in style to Franklin J Schaffner’s 1973 film Papillon, that film was to be the wonderfully monikered The Rapacious Jailbreaker. Based on the accounts of both prisoners and guards, The Rapacious Jailbreaker is the first in a loosely based trilogy of prison dramas, the others being Shimane Prison Riot (1975) and Robbery, Arson, Murder (1975). In each movie, Hiroki Matsukata plays a different prisoner who formulates a clever escape strategy.

In The Rapacious Jailbreaker, Matsukata plays Ueda, a criminal who has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for a double murder. He has no intention of staying there and repeatedly attempts to escape. Each time he manages to get away, they find him and return him to the prison, adding extra time to his sentence. Whilst the story may be very simple and straight forward it is well written, and performed by a very solid cast. Obviously, Matsukata is the stand out performer here, making a deeply unpleasant person into a fascinating and almost likeable character. Whilst we’re meant to empathise with Ueda’s situation, the film doesn’t pull any punches in its attempts to show a fairly honest and real representation of life in prison during the 1940s and 1950s. 

This new Blu-ray from Radiance films features a lovely print of the movie with a clear picture, good natural colours and no noticeable print damage to speak of. On top of that it comes with some good quality bonus materials, a brand new audio commentary by Nathan Stuart and a new visual essay by Tom Mes. The disc is limited to 3,000 copies and comes with a reversible sleeve and a booklet featuring a new essay from Earl Jackson.

Overall, this is a more than solid package for a very good, straight forward crime drama. Once again Radiance have given a new lease of life to a vastly underrated and forgotten film from 1970s Japan, and I am glad they have done so. If you like simple, well done prison dramas then take a look at this one, you won’t be disappointed.