Director Kinji Fukasaku’s filmography reveals only one movie familiar to a wide American audience: 1970’s Tora! Tora! Tora!, where he worked on the segments that dealt with the Japanese. For a look at a project from fairly early in Fukasaku’s long career, we go to 1966’s The Threat.

Near Tokyo, prisoners Kawanishi (Kō Nishimura) and Sabu (Hideo Murota) escape and go on the lam. This leads to concerns about whether they’ve found refuge in the city.

Eventually the convicts break into the house of business executive Misawa (Rentarō Mikuni) and take over the home. The outlaws also come with the kidnapped infant grandson of famous Doctor Sakata (Ken Mitsuda) and expect their hostages to facilitate a ransom exchange.

Most thrillers of this sort would paint the victims as “true blue”. Threat doesn’t follow those lines.

During the opening credits, we get a quick summary of the situation with the escaped prisoners. After that, we immediately leap to a wedding at which Misawa offers a toast.

Initially, this seems normal, but the movie shows reactions to Misawa’s speech from coworkers. These imply Misawa is a phony and a lackey who uses flattery in an attempt to move up the ranks at his job.

None of this means Misawa deserves to find his family subject to the whims of madmen, but it does set up the character as less than noble from the start. Subsequent scenes add to this impression as well.

Threat uses a variety of ways to set up Misawa as weak. It doesn’t turn him into an overt coward, but it presents him as an insecure man whose feelings of powerlessness impact his judgment.

As such, Misawa becomes much more of a wild card than we’d expect from a pretty simple “home invasion” tale like this. Usually we expect the “head of household” to always do what he must for his family, but Misawa seems flawed enough that we can’t predict how he’ll act.

I like that twist, as it adds a real layer of depth and complexity to what otherwise could be a trite tale. I won’t reveal what Misawa does in the end, but Threat takes an unusual path.

That said, Threat does seem to owe a debt to 1955’s The Desperate Hours. Though I won’t call Threat a remake of that Bogart flick, the two share more than superficial similarities.

Nonetheless, Threat winds up as an above average hostage drama. It delivers compelling twists and keeps us involved the whole time.

The Threat appears in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Expect a largely positive presentation.

For the most part, sharpness worked fine. Some shots seemed softer than I’d expect, but those remained in the minority.

No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects materialized, and I saw no edge haloes. Grain felt natural, and outside of scratches during the opening credits, I witnessed no print flaws.

Blacks felt dark and dense, while low-light shots offered generally appealing clarity. Though not a visual showcase, the image held up fine over the decades.

The movie’s LPCM monaural soundtrack showed its age. The dialogue tended to seem a bit edgy and rough, though the lines appeared to be intelligible – at least as much as I could tell given I don’t speak Japanese.

Effects varied, with some clean stems as well as distorted material. The same issues occurred with music, as the score went from fairly vibrant to shrill. This felt like a mediocre track for an older movie.

A few extras appear, and we open with an audio commentary from film historian Tom Mes. He provides a running, screen-specific look at story/characters/themes, the nature of Japanese studios in the era, genre domains, and cast and crew.

Don't expect much content specifically about The Threat here - at least not until the final act. For the movie's first two-thirds or so, Mes focuses on notes about Japanese cinema as well as the other works by cast and crew.

The info about Japanese studios work well, but the cast/crew material gets a bit tedious, mainly because it feels like Mes talks about everything other than the actual movie at hand. When he does chat about Threat, it feels more like he does so by default.

Mes seems to run out of steam in the film's final third and discusses Threat more because he can't find much else to say. This means empty spaces and limited insights - and a spotty commentary as a whole.

In addition to the film’s trailer, we find a “video appreciation” entitled Warning Warning Danger Danger. It features critic/historian Mark Schilling and goes for 18 minutes, 42 seconds.

Schilling discusses the film and those involved. He delivers a decent set of notes, though I don’t think the reel becomes especially revealing.

With The Threat, we get a tight take on the “home invasion” genre. The movie cranks at a good pace and throws out curveballs that make it unusually compelling. The Blu-ray comes with fairly good picture, mediocre audio and a smattering of bonus materials. Threat delivers a quality thriller.