Proof of the Man

• Watchlist

• 1977
• 1 hr 40 mins
• Suspense, Drama

• Watchlist

• Watchlist

After receiving a massive pay-out from a mysterious benefactor, a young mixed-race man named Jonny Hayward (Joe Yamanaka) travels from his home in the slums of Harlem to Tokyo. There, in the elevator of a plush hotel hosting a catwalk show for elite fashion designer Kyoko Yasugi (Mariko Okada), he is found brutally murdered. Later that same night, Kyohei Kori (Kôichi Iwaki), Kyoko's son with her powerful politician husband Yohei (Toshirô Mifune), becomes involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident, and flees to America. Suspecting that both of these incidents are linked, detective Koichiro Munusue (Yûsaku Matsuda) goes to New York and reluctantly teams up with a counterpart in the NYPD, Ken Shuftan (George Kennedy), to find Kyohei and learn more about Jonny's past from his father Willy Hayward (Robert Earl Jones), who was stationed in Japan after WWII. Munusue, whose father was beaten to death by American G.I.s when the detective was a boy, must confront his vengeful feelings towards Americans - as well as Shuftan's own links to Japan - in order to solve the case.