Made during the height of the modern-day gangster film craze, Lone Yakuza is a nostalgic throwback to, and genial send-up of, the already dated period-drama genre which both Kato and actor Kinnosuke Nakamura had popularized. Shot under Toei's usual twenty-day mandate, the film giddily tosses everything and anything at the viewer while sketching the travails of a wandering yakuza fated to defend the family of a man he has killed. Slapstick comedy (from Tora-San actor Kiyoshi Atsumi), senseless blood-spraying (courtesy of Nakamura, famed for his swordplay technique), and melodramatic love and longing are all presented in somber low-angle long takes, which Kato has refined and stylized to the point of even shooting from deep holes. Jarring moments of color, and editing and framing experimentation add extra spark to this bemused, reflective nail in the period-drama's coffin.-Jason Sanders