An imperious milestone of 1960s Japanese cinema, Seijun Suzuki’s most celebrated film is brilliant, bizarre, and excessive, so it’s no great surprise that Winding Refn holds it in such high regard. A day-glo, pop-art action movie, the drifter of the title is played by Tetsuya Watari, who looks impossibly cool throughout in his mod-ish powder blue suit.

He’s a reformed hitman who has decided it is time to hang up his guns. That is, until a double cross draws him back into Tokyo’s underworld, and he embarks on a violent rampage of revenge. (Notes by Michael Hayden.)

Screening as part of Wanna Fight? (August 3rd – 31st), our season recognising the influences on director Nicolas Winding Refn and the roots of Only God Forigves.