The Resurrection of the Golden Wolf (1979)

Any film in which Sonny Chiba DOESN'T play the coolest character has got to be worth a look, if only to see who could possibly be more of a bad-ass than he. In The Resurrection of the Golden Wolf, that person is Yûsaku Matsuda, who plays Tetsuya Asakura, a seemingly meek accountant who takes the fast track to success and wealth rather than spending years climbing the corporate ladder; once his office work is over for the day, Asakura whips off his wig to reveal a trendy mop of permed hair, slips on his shades, and pursues a second career as a ruthless, gun-toting criminal who will stop at nothing to make his dreams come true.

This promising premise leads to plenty of exploitative nudity and violence, as Asakura stoops to sexually exploiting his boss's beautiful mistress Kyoko (the scrummy Jun Fubuki), consorts with a gang of drug dealers after a heist leaves him with 100 million yen of unusable notes, and becomes involved in a deadly game of corporate espionage, blackmail and murder. With it's many plot threads, played out over a massive 131 minutes, and so many thoroughly despicable characters to keep track of, this hard-boiled crime-noir isn't always easy to follow, but the good stuff—the gratuitous nookie, the violent shoot-outs, the macho posturing, the topless go-go dancers, the bleak ending—definitely make it worth persevering through any moments of confusion.