Rating: 
Summary: great movie
Review: I really can't understand how people see this movie as being "incoherent" or "boring". Maybe I've seen too many mst3k movies...now those, THOSE movies that are riffed are incoherent! Plain and simple it's a yakuza movie, there, was that so incoherent? I just saw it on IFC and I loved it. I personally enjoyed Tokyo Drifter more, I really dug the groovy music. And artsy...you haven't seen artsy until you've seen the skateboard video memory screen. They take artsy over the top; of the 44 minutes about 5 minutes is actual skateboarding the rest is weird random images but still good. And boring...at least to me it was boring is Gerry -- it's just walking in the desert. Maybe not boring to others but it was just too much for me. Anyways Branded To Kill and Tokyo Drifter are great movies and not at all boring.
Rating:
Summary: great movie
Review: I really can't understand how people see this movie as being "incoherent" or "boring". Maybe I've seen too many mst3k movies...now those, THOSE movies that are riffed are incoherent! Plain and simple it's a yakuza movie, there, was that so incoherent? I just saw it on IFC and I loved it. I personally enjoyed Tokyo Drifter more, I really dug the groovy music. And artsy...you haven't seen artsy until you've seen the skateboard video memory screen. They take artsy over the top; of the 44 minutes about 5 minutes is actual skateboarding the rest is weird random images but still good. And boring...at least to me it was boring is Gerry -- it's just walking in the desert. Maybe not boring to others but it was just too much for me. Anyways Branded To Kill and Tokyo Drifter are great movies and not at all boring.
Rating: 
Summary: The worst side of the "art film"
Review: I think the term "incoherent" is flung around far too much in reviews, when they actually mean "implausible." Even if they don't make sense, most movies have a logical flow. "Un Chien Andalou" has a "plot" of sorts, in that events happen in sequential order. Jan Svankmajer's shorts have events in sequential order. Even people who have a little too much fun in the editing room usually come up with something that at least presents events in a somewhat coherent fashion.But this movie IS incoherent. Frankly, I don't care if it's New Wave or not, the entire middle third is basically just hosing us with random images, and that's not good filmmaking unless you've been brainwashed by our nation's film schools. I wasn't sure if this was utterly sincere or if Seijun Suzuki was poking fun. I'm all for art in genre movies, but not silliness. If you're a fan of "Ghost Dog: Way of The Samurai", then this film is worth checking out to see where Jarmusch got his inspiration. Otherwise, just don't bother; it's incoherent, it's boring, and it's the kind of thing that turn anybody without a film degree away from "art cinema."
Rating: 
Summary: Butterfly Kiss
Review: I was inspired to seek out Branded to Kill as it's long been one of Jim Jarmusch's favorite films, and he's long been one of my favorite filmmakers. You could say that his interest in Japanese pop culture first came to the fore in Mystery Train, the darkly comic tale of two Japanese tourists on a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Elvis (Graceland). But it's Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, which mostly clearly takes its inspiration from Seijun Suzuki's bizarre, yet strangely beautiful Branded to Kill. Certainly, the external trappings are different (Suzuki's film is in B&W, it's set in Japan, RZA most definitely did not compose the soundtrack, etc.), but the central characters are cut from the same inscrutable cloth. Arguably, Ghost Dog also takes its inspiration from another non-American noir released in '67--Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai with Alain Delon as, you guessed it, a bird-loving hitman of few words (a film that, in turn, inspired John Woo's The Killer). Branded to Kill plays out like a cross between an American noir from the '50s (like Kiss Me Deadly), a French New Wave post-noir (like Breathless or Le Doulos), and a Japanese "art" film (like Woman in the Dunes). At first, you think Goro (Jo Shishido) is one odd dude (with his chipmunk cheeks, wierd rice obsession, insatiable libido, etc.), but then you meet the women in his life...both of whom, his wife (Mariko Ogawa) and butterfly-obsessed mistress (Mari Annu), are about as strange as it gets (so strange--and downright kinky--in fact, that accusations of misogyny would not be completely misplaced). If you've been looking for something different, you've definitely found it in Branded to Kill. If the plot is as incomprehensible as that of, say, The Big Sleep, it doesn't really matter. It's all about the look and feel of the thing, best exemplified by the set pieces, most of which are quite spectacular (and constructed more out of ingenuity than cold hard cash). Recommended as much to fans of Jarmusch and Melville as to fans of Takeshi Kitano, yet another filmmaker who has mastered the art of the surprisingly sympathetic (and silent) hitman. And you'll never look at a butterfly the same way again--or a bowl of rice, for that matter. Trivia note: Masatoshi Nagase from Mystery Train and the Suzuki-inspired trilogy that began with The Most Terrible Time of My Life, also appears in Pistol Opera (2001), Suzuki's sequel to Branded to Kill (released when Nagase was only a year old!).
Rating:
Summary: REALLY ODD, BUT A LOT OF FUN!
Review: I'm not sure where I'm going with this review because, frankly, I don't quite know what to make of this truly odd movie. I like it, but I don't know why. The first time I saw this film, I was certain I had wasted the good part of $25 on a piece of stupid incomprehensible garbage. But I watched it a second time (hey, I might not have liked it, but I wanted to get my money's worth), and it all suddenly fell into place. The whole thing kinda sorta made sense, and the overall "look" and mood of the picture sunk in. The plot is fairly simple, although there is some confusion in a couple of scenes concerning the location of certain characters and how they got there, as well as some surreal scenes that simply defy logic. These scenes don't affect the overall plot per se, but they will have you tilt your head to one side and say, "huh?". The action is certainly over-the-top, with some of the strangest gun fights on film. How they manage to shoot at each other through windshields (without breaking them, mind you) is quite a mystery. Other reviewers have compared director Seijun Suzuki to other contemporary directors. What I find interesting about this film is its apparent influence on one of Japan's biggest anime exports, "The Castle Of Cagliostro". From Killer #3's clothing style to the bad guys' castle hideaway to the comical gun-evading dance of his temporary sidekick, the influences are easy to spot. Given how the Japanese studio system worked in the 1960's, it's easy to understand why Suzuki was fired for making this film. It's so radically different in every way from the typical Japanese potboilers that were mass-produced. The Criterion edition provides a clean crisp widescreen transfer with remastered sound. The optional English subtitles sometimes appear to have been greatly condensed, so you get the feeling during some scenes that you're missing something. There is an interview with Suzuki which is, as are almost all Criterion interviews, very interesting. One of the disc extras includes a gallery of movie posters (Branded To Kill and others) featuring the actor Jo Shishido and his famous collagen-enhanced cheeks. What's missing, in my opinion, is a commentary track for this film. How enlightening it would have been to get more background on the actors, production, or script. Oh well, you can't have everything. But it still doesn't detract from this fun and interesting film. And check out the burning castle scene. A stone castle gets tranformed into a blazing inferno in mere seconds after the gasoline is lit. It's a hoot!
Rating:
Summary: I love it!!
Review: If David Lynch were japanese, he might be similar to Suzuki. Very cool, very weird.
Rating:
Summary: David Lynch and Martin Scorcese square off in Japan, 1950
Review: Imagine if David Lynch and Martin Scorcese squared off in Japan, 1950, and you've got this gem. Enter Japan's Number Three killer who's about to square off against the girl who loves butterflies and the Number one killer. But before that, he must sniff some rice. Seijun Suzuki got fired for this film, and it makes no sense why, this is a masterpiece of kitsch, heightened by Criterion's care. Many companies try to put out quality product like them, but only Criterion puts out the top of the line DVDs.
Rating:
Summary: Never seen anything like this; Yakuza existentialism
Review: Japanese Noir? If such a thing is possible, I guess this is it. Although I think that the more recent Beat Takeda movies are closer to the classic American form that Suzuki's stuff. Am I detecting the influence of the French New Wave in this film? Existentialism seems to manifest itself in different ways throughout the film particularly in the numbering of the yakuza killers. I was amazed by the really strong erotic content but found some of the violence cartoonish (not neccessarily a bad thing). If you buy this, and I strongly reccomend that you do,don't try very hard to figure it out as you go along. Just ride along with it and it will take you to some very dark, and bizarre, places.
Rating:
Summary: Color Bars, baby, color bars!!!!
Review: My Television has become the talk of the town thanks to those nifty "Color Bars" on this heaven sent DVD...whenever I throw a party the first thing I do is pop this hot mama in the plaver and drop on those hot "bars" up on my screen and ...Boom! next thing I know...I've got my pick of any female in the house!!! OH YEAH!!! Shieat, my nezra! I'd gladly pay 1,000 bananas just for this sexy mamba-jamba of a DVD...you buy it too and see what happens to your sex life!! Oh! I gotta go! Looks like another fine honey done got her eyes transfixed on my "Bars"!!! BOI!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Japan's greatest director of all time.
Review: Seijun Suzuki is undoubtedly Japan's greatest director of all time. Far more controversial and critical of the Japanese spirit than Kurosawa, he is a creative genius with a surrealist flare and the brilliance of an Orson Welles. Branded to kill, while not Seijun's best film is a classic example of how he can take a genre of film (Yakuza/gangster 007 hitman) and turn it into a bizarre psychological drama of self analysis and twist the characters own egotism upon themselves.
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