Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards!
1963 film

Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards! (探偵事務所23 くたばれ悪党ども, Tantei Jimusho 23: Kutabare Akutōdomo; aka Detective Bureau 23: Down with the Wicked) is a 1963 Japanese yakuza film directed by Seijun Suzuki in the vein of the Nikkatsu Studio's "borderless action cinema." It starred Joe Shishido as Hideo Tajima.
This was the first part of a series which ended after the second installment. That second film, Detective Bureau 2-3: A Man Weak to Money and Women, with Shishido returning as Hideo Tajima, was directed by Nozomu Yanase and released later the same year (1963).
Plot
Two rival gangs (the Otsuki and the Sakura) are shaken by the new arrival of a third, secret gang who is stealing arms from both them and U.S. arms shipments. Keen to track them down, private detective Hideo Tajima (Joe Shishido) who runs a small company called 'Detective Bureau 2-3' tips off the police about a possible hit against a new stash of weaponry. With the police's help, providing him with a new identity (with a new name; Tanaka), Tajima infiltrates the secret gang.
Upon contact he is kept in a room isolated from the rest of the gang as they do a background search; during this time he begins to speak to a girl who gives him food and water, he finds out that she is the mistress to the gang boss. The gang find Tajima's (fake) address and question the unusual occurrence that he supposedly lives in a Catholic church. Tajima explains that his father is a priest, police disguised as clergymen and parish members corroborate this story when the gang goes to investigate.
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