Branded to Kill - Koroshi No Rakuin - Criterion Collection

Rating:
Summary: Amazing!
Review: Suzuki's Branded to Kill has to be one of the most incredible Japanese films ever made. The director effortlessly combines screwball comedy, 60s noir, French New Wave, spaghetti Western (yes, that's right, spaghetti Western), and black comedy with healthy doses/dollops of surrealism, the Japanese ghost story, eroticism and cynicism.

Obviously the emphasis is on style, and it's here by the truckload. The story of a yakuza whose manic drive to be Killer Number One--instead of his current Number Three status--it shows the protagonist, Hamada, nonchalantly shooting a woman, assassinating a few other guys (one with an amazingly comic plumbing technique), and, near the end of the film, vying with the real Number One for that very spot. When you hear Japanese spoken throughout the film, it's just as comic (if not more so) to hear whoever refers to their killer ranking in Japanese-inflected English: "Number One", "Number Three", etc.

The main musical theme of the film is without question an homage to the Ennio Morricone soundtracks of numerous spaghetti Westerns, and every time a gunshot is heard, it has the same echoing twang heard among the canyons of the same genre of film. The sex scenes are highly erotic--taking this far from the realm of a traditional noir--and the scenes of gunplay often verge on the hysteric.

Yet noir this is; near the end of the film, Hamada is shown in an extended sequence of overt paranoia--will the real Number One kill him even as he walks around his own apartment? And the black-and-white cinematography, the occasional odd angles of shots, and the markedly cynical bent of the entire film mark it as such, no question.

A female character, Misako, functions as the unique, unusual Japanese counterpart of the femme fatale, but she's much more than that. Often appearing ghostlike in various scenes, she's Hamada's alter ego, reminding him of his frailty (she's a fanatic butterfly collector, and it's a butterfly that ruins his assassination of a key hit), and echoing the intensity of his own insecurity re his status, his psyche, his life.

This is a film that should absolutely be seen by anyone seriously interested in what film can do. No wonder this film in particular was a major influence on Tarantino, Jarmusch, and a whole host of other film makers--American and otherwise.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing!
Review: Suzuki's Branded to Kill has to be one of the most incredible Japanese films ever made. The director effortlessly combines screwball comedy, 60s noir, French New Wave, spaghetti Western (yes, that's right, spaghetti Western), and black comedy with healthy doses/dollops of surrealism, the Japanese ghost story, eroticism and cynicism.

Obviously the emphasis is on style, and it's here by the truckload. The story of a yakuza whose manic drive to be Killer Number One--instead of his current Number Three status--it shows the protagonist, Hamada, nonchalantly shooting a woman, assassinating a few other guys (one with an amazingly comic plumbing technique), and, near the end of the film, vying with the real Number One for that very spot. When you hear Japanese spoken throughout the film, it's just as comic (if not more so) to hear whoever refers to their killer ranking in Japanese-inflected English: "Number One", "Number Three", etc.

The main musical theme of the film is without question an homage to the Ennio Morricone soundtracks of numerous spaghetti Westerns, and every time a gunshot is heard, it has the same echoing twang heard among the canyons of the same genre of film. The sex scenes are highly erotic--taking this far from the realm of a traditional noir--and the scenes of gunplay often verge on the hysteric.

Yet noir this is; near the end of the film, Hamada is shown in an extended sequence of overt paranoia--will the real Number One kill him even as he walks around his own apartment? And the black-and-white cinematography, the occasional odd angles of shots, and the markedly cynical bent of the entire film mark it as such, no question.

A female character, Misako, functions as the unique, unusual Japanese counterpart of the femme fatale, but she's much more than that. Often appearing ghostlike in various scenes, she's Hamada's alter ego, reminding him of his frailty (she's a fanatic butterfly collector, and it's a butterfly that ruins his assassination of a key hit), and echoing the intensity of his own insecurity re his status, his psyche, his life.

This is a film that should absolutely be seen by anyone seriously interested in what film can do. No wonder this film in particular was a major influence on Tarantino, Jarmusch, and a whole host of other film makers--American and otherwise.

Rating:
Summary: Ridiculous Sublime Yakuza Masterpiece
Review: The term "visionary" gets thrown around alot, but "Branded to Kill" redefines it. This '67 black and white will leave your jaw hanging. Yes, partly in incomprehension, but also in stunned awe. A stylistic tour de force that is still news and way hipper than anything you'll see at the mall multiplex. The coolest classic around.

Rating:
Summary: an odd crime film
Review: This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.

This move is one of the most odd gangster films I have seen.

The film follows a gangster [who] is known as the "number 3" killer and is epeatedly threatened by the "number 1" killer.

This film contains nudity to a degree of which I am surprised was legal in Japan at the time the movie was filmed. The film has several clever tricks by the characters to avoid being shot and there is some witty humor in the film also.

The director of this film was fired by the studio after aming this film and was blacklisted for 10 years.

The Criterion Collection DVD has 2 special features on it. There is an 11 minute interview with the director Seijun Suzuki, and a slide show of Japanese movie posters and lobby cards from the collection of John Zorn, who also wrote the liner ntes thant come with the DVD.