For actor Ken Takakura, the winding down of the Battles without Honour or Humanity series risked an end to his starring roles. He feared not only that he was being typecast as a gangster, but that the days of gangster movies were in decline. The idea to cast him as Takao Saito’s famous manga assassin, one of the few characters with so much punch they could command a magazine with their own name on it, was a desperate attempt by Toei to find him a role that matched his star power, and to keep him from becoming an independent contractor.

Golgo 13 was the big franchise – a golden cash-cow in winning salaryman readers, exactly the sort of audience who could be trusted to show up at cinemas for a live-action adaptation. But manga creator Saito was being notoriously difficult with Toei, issuing a series of eccentric demands if the studio wanted the rights. He insisted that Golgo should be played by his original inspiration, Ken Takakura, which was good news for Takakura, and bad news for the studio that feared it was about to lose him. But he also insisted that the film be shot entirely overseas. Saito refused to countenance a big movie that took place in little Japan. Part of the appeal of the Golgo 13 franchise was its globe-trotting locations, which were easy to summon up in paper and ink, but a costly investment on film.

Eventually, an incredibly shady solution presented itself. “Someone,” said director Junya Sato, who “travelled a lot between Japan and Iran” whispered to Toei that he’d received a nod from an Iranian film company that was ready to cough up a budget. And as long as the film was shot in the Imperial State of Iran, the army and the Shah would play along.

Officially, the film was shot entirely in Iran during the last years of the Shah, presenting a priceless time-capsule of everyday life before the 1979 revolution propelled the Ayatollah into power. Secretly, several pick-ups and interiors were actually filmed back in Japan, but the media printed the legend, possibly because admitting it might have triggered a breach of contract with the manga creator.

Unfortunately, the unnamed deal-maker who had promised state support turned out to be a liar. Takakura, Sato and the crew arrived in Iran to face mountains of red tape and nearly two weeks of delays.

“It was almost like we had been scammed,” complained Sato. He had not actually been on the earlier location hunt, as he had been wrapping his previous film, which meant he had no idea what Iran would be like until he got off the plane. He arrived in October 1973, less than three months before the film was due to have its New Year’s premiere, with the clock already ticking.

On-site delays lopped ten days off the limited shooting schedule, forcing Sato to go back to the script on a daily basis, cutting scenes and set-ups in order to get something in the can. Part of the deal had been to work with local Iranian talent, who were hoping to learn about new innovations like sound. Sato discovered that his assistants were super-keen to learn how microphones worked, since all previous Iranian films had been shot as silent movies. But this meant that none of the Iranian actors were used to recording lines – something that didn’t bother Sato, as he was planning on replacing them with Japanese voice actors anyway. As a result, although Inspector Aman Jafari is played by an Iranian actor, Mohsen Sohrabi, his voice in the Japanese release is that of Yasuo Yamada, better known as Lupin III.

In other unexpected anime connections, Catherine Morton (Pouri Banayi) was voiced in Japan by Michiko Hirai, who played Starsha in Space Battleship Yamato. The dastardly Max Boa (Ahmad Qadakchian) was voiced by Kosei Tomita, who was the first actor to voice Doraemon the time-travelling robot cat.

It would, however, be remiss to suggest that these actors were cast because of their anime associations. It might be better to point to the connections their voices evoked in live-action dubbing, which was a common job for Japanese vocal artists. Shuichiro Moriyama, for example, who voiced Walter in the film, was familiar to Japanese listeners as the voice of Telly Savalas; Takeshi Watabe, who voiced Douglas, was more familiar to Japanese ears as the voice of Yaphet Kotto. As for Haruko Kitahama, who voiced damsel in distress Sheila Jafari, she had plenty of anime roles, but was probably most recognisable as the Japanese voice of Elizabeth Montgomery.

Miraculously, Sato brought the film home on time, although the corners he had to cut inevitably compromised Takao Saito’s vision. Creator Saito had insisted on writing the script himself, with no thought whatsoever to what it might cost. Director Sato called it “unproduceable”, making excuses on the manga creator’s part that he was unfamiliar with the realities of film making, and would need help in translating his ideas for the screen. The artist disagreed, and published his unexpurgated script in Golgo 13 magazine, harrumphing all the while that the movie people had ruined it. They hadn’t.

Jonathan Clements is the author of A Brief History of Japan.

Golgo 13 is available from Media OCD on Blu-ray.