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Takashi Ishii twists the familiar heist-gone-bad picture into a mind-bendingly weird and nightmarishly violent piece of yakuza madness in Gonin. The title means "five," as in five nothing-to-lose amateurs, led by a flashy nightclub owner deep in debt to the mob, who team up to heist the very men he owes. The robbery is a success, but escape proves much harder with the steely, unflappable enforcer "Beat" Takeshi (Violent Cop) on their tail. Ishii directs this bloody and bleak crime drama with an edge of desperation, sparing nothing in the gruesome display of beatings, interrogations, and cold-blooded murder as the yakuza goons track down the motley team one by one to torture confessions out of them (or, if that doesn't work, force them to watch the brutal abuse of their loved ones). But the most demented scenes belong to the troubled heisters themselves, in particular an out-of-work middle-class family man whose inner rage finally bubbles over. We see the terrifying aftermath when he comes home in a delirium, sweet-talking his family of crimson corpses. The visceral action, brutal violence, and bright, searing colors create a savage gangster picture shadowed by a dark cloud of doom. --Sean Axmaker
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