Akira Kobayashi
The Nikkatsu Company conceived "Take Aim at the Police Van" as a borderless action film, a studio subgenre with internationalized characters and setting. Contract director Seijun Suzuki had previously worked mainly on pop song films, a youth subgenre in which the films were built around an already popular song, and yakuza films with an occasional film noir bent. It also marked the beginning of his practice of co-writing his films. Leading man Michitaro Mizushima had also starred in Suzuki's "Underworld Beauty" two years earlier. He was atypical of borderless action films by virtue of his age, forty-eight at the time, as they typically featured Nikkatsu's younger stars such as Yujiro Ishihara and Akira Kobayashi.