Equal parts Spaghetti Western, French New Wave, and hard-boiled noir, Takashi Nomura’s A Colt Is My Passport (original Japanese title: Koruto wa ore no pasupôto) is a lean, moody 1967 crime film that oozes cool. Joe Shishido (and those famously surgically-enhanced cheeks for which he became known) stars as a stoic gun-for-hire navigating a botched assassination, double-crosses, and a bloody standoff at the edge of town.

With stark black-and-white cinematography, stylized action, and a jazzy score, the film plays like a fusion of Jean-Pierre Melville and Sergio Leone, all filtered through the lens of late-’60s Japanese cynicism. It represents the turn in Japanese cinema from introspective postwar realism to a new wave of genre experimentation and rebellion.

Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema is a curated 12-film trip through the evolution of Japan—from the quiet post-war resilience of the 1940s all the way to the radical reinventions of the 1990s. Each Monday this July-September, we will explore a new facet of this incredible nation’s cinematic journey throughout the 20th century. All films will be presented in their original Japanese language with English subtitles, at a reduced ticket price of $8.