In 1968, Suzuki Seijun - a low-budget genre filmmaker known for movies including Branded to Kill, Tokyo Drifter, and Youth of the Beast - was unceremoniously fired by Nikkatsu Studios. William Carroll offers a new account of Suzuki's career that highlights the intersections of film theory, film production, cinephile culture, and politics in 1960s Japan. This book presents both a major reinterpretation of Suzuki's work - which influenced directors such as John Woo, Jim Jarmusch, and Quentin Tarantino - and a new lens on postwar Japanese film culture and industry.