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Opening
bluntly with the Nikkatsu Studio logo and
the sounds of automatic gunfire and a ton
of bullet ricochets, the swanky theme song
kicks in and the
action picks up when master assassin
Hanada (Joe Shishido) and
his wife Mami (Mariko Ogawa)
are picked up at the airport by Kasuga (Hiroshi
Minami). Sent for by
Yahumara, their boss, he needs them for
job that requires some of their special
skills. Kasuga, the not-quite master
assassin, admits that it's really a one
man job, but he's lost his nerve and needs
Hanada's help. Meeting Yahumara
(Isao Tamagawa) at a bar,
the lady orders a scotch while Hanada
requests a pot of steamed rice. The
bartender thinks it's a queer order but
gets to work. Hanada slides into
Yahumara's booth and gets his assignment:
They're to escort an important client from
the airport to Yahumara's estate.
Knowing
that the need of an armed-escort usually
means trouble, Hanada memorizes the info
and then burns the piece of paper. The
rice is finally done. So while he happily
cradles the pot and huffs the vapor
raising from it, repeatedly, Mami slides
into the booth and gets awfully chummy
with Yahumara, complaining about her
husbands strange hang-ups. It seems Hanada
has a thing for boiled rice that borders
on orgasm when he whiffs its aroma.
Hanada
and Kasuga meet at their assigned car but
find their driver dead in the back seat.
Not a good omen. Hanada tells his twitchy
partner to ignore it and they'll dump the
body out in the country. Along the way,
shop-talk leads to the top Ten Master
Assassins. Ranked by skill Hanada checks
in at Number Three. Kasuga used to be
ranked -- but trouble with nerves and
booze has ruined his reputation. Nobody
knows
who the Number One assassin is -- a/k/a
the "Phantom Killer," but they
fear he's the one who off'd the driver. So
while Hanada is extra cautious, the
rattled Kasuga starts to drink heavily
from the bottle of liquor he brought along.
After they pick up the client, a car
starts tailing them. Tension mounts as it
grows closer. Hanada pulls his gun and
tells Kasuga to stop on his signal. He
does, but the car is nothing but a bunch
of cruising teenagers that roars on past
them. Hanada calls Yahumara, but his wife
picks up. Not recognizing her and thinking
he has the wrong number, Mami quickly
hands the phone over to his boss, revealing
they are in bed together.
Reporting
so far, so good, Hanada is cautiously
optimistic -- but not for very much
longer. By now, Kasuga
is soused and Hanada must take over the
driving. And at the exit of the next
tunnel, they run right into an ambush. The
client takes cover in the back and his
protectors spill outside and return fire.
Their car is turned to Swiss cheese, and
Kasuga loses it. Hanada slaps him silly
and orders him to do his job and protect
the client while he tries to outflank the
assassins.
Ashamed
by his cowardice, Kasuga recovers and
returns fire. Dodging bullets, Hanada
circles around and cuts down two of the
assassins. Then Kasuga spots Koh -- one of
the ten ranked assassins -- musters his
courage and charges after him. Hanada
knows he's outmatched and tries to call
him off. Koh smiles sadistically while
Kasuga foams at the mouth as they exchange
gunfire. Seriously. When they finally
crash into each other, guns empty, Kasuga
falls dead while Koh solemnly takes his
coat off, lies down, and pulls the coat
over his head and expires, applying
his own death shroud. (A very funny
scene.)
Hanada
pulls the client out of the now useless
car. He's alive, but not real impressed
with his escort. Telling him to sit tight,
Hanada sets out to steal the assassin's
car. When he finds it he hears more
gunfire, and when heads back, finds the
client alive and well but three more dead
assassins -- each with a single bullet
hole right square in the forehead. Methinks
the client doesn't really need protecting.
Even
though all seems quiet now, Hanada
realizes that Sukara -- another ranked
killer, and Koh's frequent partner -- must
be nearby. Spotting several men running
around a concrete bunker, Hanada uses the
assassin's car to run two of them over.
Sukara safely retreats into the bunker and
returns fires. Hanada takes the car's
gas can out of the trunk and storms the
bunker. Tossing the can inside he fires at
it, which ignites the gas into some impromptu
napalm. As the bunker rapidly burns, Sukara,
engulfed in flames, keeps on shooting. He
bursts out of the door screaming, a raging
fireball, and with rifle in hand charges
across the open field toward his target,
refusing to give up on his mission. Hanada
watches
this macabre seen with little concern. The
client waits patiently until Sukara
reaches the car before putting a bullet
square in his forehead. Wow.
And
then the
rest of the trip to Yahumara's is pretty
uneventful...

It
was by whim and chance only that I stumbled
upon the truly bizarre, insanely violent,
yet unbelievably beautiful cinematic world
of maverick Japanese filmmaker Seijun Suzuki.
Spotting the Criterion DVD of Branded
to Kill
on my way out of the store because of the
wildly colored case, I also noticed a very
familiar jowled character on the cover. No
one else has cheeks like that. So I yelled
out, "Hey! It's Captain Joe!"
which brought concerned stares from several
other customers, who quickly gave me a wide
berth down the video-aisle. Who's this
Captain Joe? Well, those of you familiar
with your
MST3k
will know who I'm talking about. Shishido
played the hard drinking, hard fighting,
"he tried to kill me with a
forklift" big-cheeked commander of the
Bacchus III. Clad in his leather jumpsuit,
he sweated a lot and kept Star-Wolf Ken in
line during the two Fugitive
Alien
episodes.
I
had never heard of this film, or had a clue
who Suzuki was, but when I flipped it over
and read the synopsis that said "The
wildly perverse story of the yakuza's
rice-sniffing Number Three killer is Suzuki
at his delirious best" it had me
intrigued. Further reading found that the
film was so bizarre and messed up that the
director got fired by his studio after
making it. Now how in the hell could I pass
this up. Actually, in truth, it had me sold
right at the "rice-sniffing"
killer part.
I'd
like to think that as someone whose seen a
lot of oddball movies it would take
something really and truly special to
completely blindside me as so friggin'
brilliant that it left me speechless by the
end. Well, here ya go.
And
I'm not alone in my assessment, which is why
3B
Theater
is proudly teaming up with Iniquity
Films to spread the word and introduce
you, our readers, to the fascinating noir
films of director Seijun Suzuki: A man whose
films were so not right that it got
him fired from Nikkatsu Studios and
blackballed from directing for over fifteen
years. While
Brendan "Smokey X. Digger"
O'Brien takes a look at Tokyo
Drifter -- the film that originally got
Suzuki in trouble, I'll be taking a look at Branded
to Kill
-- the film that sealed his fate and got him
canned. And while Tokyo
Drifter is over-saturated with color, Branded
to Kill
is set in a world of stark black and white.
It's noir on speed. Tarantino wishes he came
up with stuff like this!
And before we get
back to the review, I have to pause and point
out that even with all the mayhem and
carnage we've seen so far, we're only barely
past the twenty-minute mark -- with seventy
more yet to go! So let's get back to it...
After
dropping the client off, Hanada's car breaks
down. He waits in a driving rainstorm until
a girl in a convertible stops to give him a
lift. The top's down but the morose driver
doesn't seem to mind the rain. She also
doesn't seem to mind the dead bird with the
spike impaled through it's neck hanging from
the rearview mirror. Declaring she has a
death wish,
Hanada is morbidly smitten with this strange
girl.
We
segue from the rain shower to a bathroom
shower where Mami is finishing up her bath.
Hanada's in the kitchen, Bogarting some
boiled rice fumes but he can't shake his
thoughts away from the creepy Goth-chick.
Needing a distraction, he goes looking for
his wife and finds here in the bedroom. They
then proceed to have some consensual -- but
very violent sex all over the house; in the
bed, on the spiral stairs and on the
bathroom floor. During a brief timeout, she
eats while he does the old circle-jerk with
a fresh pot of rice. Mami
hates this fetish and tells him he's screwed
in the head, which prompts more violent sex
until they finally wear each other out.
The
next morning, Hanada reads the paper and
Mami complains that the only time he pays
attention to her is when they're having sex.
Saved by the phone, the boss says he's got
another job for him: Four
separate targets need to be taken out.
Hanada quickly gets to work, taking the
first two out rather uniquely. First, he
sets up behind a giant billboard for
cigarettes near the train station. When the
giant mechanical hand flicks the lighter
open, it reveals a small hole. Perfect to
stick a gun through. Spotting his target, he
waits for the lighter to open again and then
takes him out. His next target is an
optometrist, who we find gleefully pulling
the false glass-eye out of one of his
patients. Hanada gets into the basement of
the office and finds the drain pipe to the
target's sink. Taking it apart, he then
sticks the gun up the pipe and waits for the
doctor to turn the water on. When the water
comes he fires, hitting the doctor, who was
leaning over the sink square in the
head.
Two
down. Two to go.
The
third is a diamond merchant and he's taken
out the old fashioned way. Hanada just
barges in and blows him and his henchmen
away. His escape on the balloon,
however...
Returning
home, he finds Mami has been spending all
his money a little too extravagantly and
demands she return a new mink coat. The door
bell rings. It's the Goth-chick. Mami sees
her and thinks Hanada's been screwing around
on her. She gets hysterical, so he locks Ms.
Fickle in the bedroom. With her out of the
way, he invites the girl in. Her name is
Misako (Mari
Annu) and she wants to hire him to
kill a foreigner. And it'll be a tough job
with only a three-second window of
opportunity. That's why she came to him.
Hanada asks who wants this man dead. Misako
answers she does. Hanada
admits his fascination with the morbid girl
and passionately embraces her, but Misako is
indifferent, and all the while Mami angrily
watches, clawing and squealing at the glass
bedroom wall.
The
next day, Hanada sets up the ambush. He
trains his rifle scope on the man Misako is
walking with. She steps to the side -- the
signal to fire, but right as he squeezes the
trigger, a moth lands on the barrel blocking
the scope. The shot misses the target and
hits an innocent bystander instead. As the
foreigner runs away, Misako produces a
pistol and fires three shots at him, but the
man gets away. They both hightail it out of
the area.
By
killing an innocent bystander Hanada has
broken the Assassin's Code of Conduct.
Misako warns him that he's in deep trouble
when word of this botch-up gets out. His
ranking will be long gone, and surely
someone will kill him for besmirching the
honor of the profession. Hanada shrugs it
off, saying that's the life of assassin:
"Kill or be killed." When they
split up, Misako warns he will surely die.
Hanada at first laughs at the thought of
dying, but he doesn't laugh long. He
returns home, and despite the earlier spat,
finds his wife in a frisky mood. They go at
it again but his head isn't in it. Mami
urges him on, saying they're both sexual
freaks -- beasts that need each other. He
picks up the phone and tries to arrange a
flight out of Japan until the heat's off.
His wife freaks out at this, pulls out a gun
and shoots him. (Okay,
she's buck-naked. Where the heck did she
hide that gun?)
He slumps over, and Mami, still naked, sets
fire to the apartment and then runs out the
front door screaming -- still naked.
Luckily,
Mami's bullet hit him right in the belt
buckle -- so just guess what she was probably
aiming for. The fire is getting worse, so
Hanada stumbles out into the night in some
serious pain. He runs into Misako -- a
little too conveniently, and she
takes him back to her apartment where the
walls are covered with hundred- if not
thousands of dead moths and butterflies each
with their very own stick-pin. Needing a fix
he begs her to boil some rice, but she
refuses. He threatens to kill her, but she
knows the threat is empty -- they haven't
slept with each other yet. Hanada is
willing, but fears he might wind up pinned
to the walls like the rest of her specimens
-- you and me both, brother. What is up with
this chick? Following her into the bedroom,
he is appalled to see her bed is covered
with more dead bugs. He retreats but watches
her undress through the keyhole, and then --
frankly, I'm not really sure what happens
next but someone
shoots her lovebirds, and more dead bugs are
crushed. Hanada leaves, but then comes back,
and then forcefully strips Misako until her
death fixation finally scares him off again.
He plays with his gun but it won't fire -- read
between the lines here, folks.

Paging
Dr. Freud. Dr. Sigmund Freud. You're
needed in the mixed metaphor room. Stat.
Hanada
keeps running away and coming back to kill
her, but try as he might, he can't pull the
trigger. And to be fair, she's having the
same problem trying to kill him. Hanada runs
off, down a dark alley, and is assaulted by
animated images of birds, bugs and rain. Haunted
by these visions, Hanada calls his boss.
Mami answers the phone. Hanada doesn't say
anything and hangs up. He heads to
Yahumara's apartment and finds Mami inside.
When she sees him, she screams and then
promptly passes out. And when she wakes up,
she begs for her life. Mami swears Yahumara
ordered her to kill him and tries to buy
some time by telling Hanada the three people
he killed were all part of a botched
diamond-smuggling operation. Mami says
Misako was in on it, too. And the fourth
target was the foreigner who turns out to be
an investigator looking into things that
Yahumara didn't want him to see. Claiming
she's said too much already, Mami begins to
cry and sob. But these are crocodile tears
that quickly dry up. Switching tactics, she
strips and tries to seduce him. Having seen
and heard enough, Hanada shoots her.
Wounded, Mami crawls into the bathroom where
Hanada follows and puts another bullet in
her head -- right through her lying mouth. He
leaves while part of her skull and scalp
spins around the flushing toilet.
Hanada
finds a bottle of Napoleon brandy, and while
waiting for Yahumara to return home,
finishes it off. Hearing him unlock the
front door, when no one comes inside, Hanada
cautiously moves to slowly open the door --
but the weight of Yahumara's dead body
forces the door to open. The body has a very
familiar bullet wound to the head. Hanada
looks outside but there is no one else
around.
He
returns to Misako's apartment, and when he
turns on the lights, it triggers a movie-projector.
The images projected on the wall shows a
naked and bound Misako undergoing some kind
of torture. The interrogator angrily asks
why she didn't kill Hanada, and when she
doesn't answer, a blowtorch moves closer to
her flesh. Hanada begs the moving pictures
of Misako to tell him where she is and he'll
rescue her. The interrogator keeps asking
why? And Hanada reads her lips that admit
it's because she loves him. Soon, the heat
grows too intense and Misako falls dead. The
film changes to scenes of a pier near the
harbor. The same voice tells Hanada that
five killers will be waiting for him there
tomorrow afternoon to finish this nasty
business.
The
next morning, Hanada heads to the waterfront
early to scout it out and then retires to a
bar. He receives a phone call and recognizes
the voice as the client he helped escort
earlier. The client pokes fun at Hanada for
all the mistakes he's made. Hanada asks who
is he, really. The voice answers that Hanada
is the Number Three Assassin, and since he
burned-up the Number Two Assassin (Sukara),
that means he can only be one person: Number
One Assassin -- the dreaded "Phantom Killer."

At
the set time, Hanada heads back to the
waterfront and spots two of the promised
assassins. Earlier, he set up a block and
tackle, and using the ropes to pulls his car
forward, he crawls along underneath it for
maximum protection. He finally gets close
enough and blasts the killers dead. Spotting
another car with two men fast approaching,
the ingenious assassin heads for cover. While
on assassin steers the car, the other
peppers Hanada's car with bullets. Not
realizing that Hanada jumped in the drink
and swam around behind them, he sneaks up
and takes them out with extreme prejudice --
well,
if you can do anything with extreme
prejudice clad only in your wet skivvies.
Happy
to have survived so far, Hanada realizes
that there's still one assassin left out
there -- and it's the most dangerous one of
all. Number One (Koji
Namabara) finally reveals himself and
it is indeed the man he escorted earlier.
Telling Hanada not to worry, he won't kill
him now because he owed him a debt for
protecting him earlier. But the score is now
even and Number One warns when next they
meet it will be for the last time.
Hanada
returns to Misako's apartment and gathers up
his arsenal. The phone rings. It's Number
One, encouraging him to stay inside where
it's safer. A shot rings out and the lamp
near Hanada's head explodes. Number One
torments him further, saying he could be
anywhere. So the siege is on and who knows
how long Hanada has been holed up in the
apartment. He catches brief glimpses of the
other assassin, but by the time he gets his
gun aimed, the killer is gone. More time
passes and Hanada has to rig up a noose that
will choke him whenever he dozes off so he
won't fall asleep. While the tormenting
calls continue, Hanada starts to crack,
crying for Misako, wallowing around on her
bed of dead bugs. More time passes. Out of
food, Hanada makes a break for it. After
going a safe distance he stops at a
restaurant, and just as he's about to take a
snort-full of rice, the waiter says he has a
phone call. You-Know-Who tells him to get
his butt back to the apartment so they can
end this in a civilized way.
When
Hanada returns, the
@#^* finally hits the fan. After plowing
into each other, Number One's gun is planted
on Hanada's forehead, while his gun is stuck
in the One's gut. So we have a Mexican
stand-off in the middle of a Japanese
Gangster movie, and according to the
chivalrous code of assassins, they'll have
to trust each other until one of them let's
his guard down. And
then the movie goes down a strange and
uncharted road...The
pistols are set at an equal distance,
between them, so no advantage can be had.
Hanada is amazed that Number One is so
disciplined that he can sleep with his eyes
open, and is willing to soil himself instead
of going to the bathroom. The
doorbell rings. The two lock arms and answer
it together: It's a parcel delivery for
Hanada. They take it but he doesn't open it.
More time passes, they get hungry and decide
to go out to eat. They agree to leave their
weapons behind, lock arms again, and head to
a restaurant drawing plenty of stares from
passers by. Number One
eats nothing while Hanada gorges himself.
While he's eating, Number One excuses
himself to the bathroom -- Waitasecond?
I thought he didn't need to use the
bathroom. Hanada you idiot!
Realizing
his mistake too late, he
rushes back the apartment and finds Number
One's gun is still there. But the gun is
empty and there's a note's jammed into the
clip: It says to meet at a nearby gym at
1a.m.
sharp to settle things, or he can be a
coward and stay away. Hanada declares that
he will be the new Number One. With time to
kill, he finally
opens the package and finds a roll of film
inside. Spooling it up he sees more footage
of Misako, bandaged from head to foot but
still alive. Number One's voiceover confirms
that she is alive and he'll show him where
she is -- if he comes to the gym.
That
night, following his pattern, Hanada
stealthily sneaks into the darkened gym
early -- and it's not so much a gym, but an
auditorium with a wrestling ring in the
center.
Checking his watch, he's sweating so bad he
can barely hang on to his gun. It's almost
One, so he takes off his shoes and puts them
into a shaft of light as a decoy then waits.
And waits. And waits.
And
waits.
Two
hours pass and nothing happens. The stress
of it finally breaks Hanada and he starts
giggling. He heads toward the ring but
realizes he forgot to put his shoes back on.
When he goes back for them, they're gone!
Panic sets back in as a voice comes over the
loudspeaker claiming "This is how
Number One works. He tires you, then he
kills you. Your destiny is closing in."
Hanada charges into the ring and screams
defiantly "Who is number one?" He
continues to rant but we spot him strapping
something around his head. Something moves
in the shadows. A shot rings out, and Hanada
falls to the mat.
Number
One moves into the light and heads toward
the ring, smiling the smile of final
victory...a little prematurely. He
spies Hanada's trademark sunglasses lying on
the canvas, and a busted headband studded
with metal. Hanada knew his style, too, and
knowing he'd be shot in the head, protected
himself. Despite a nasty cut and bruise on
his forehead, Hanada springs to action and
shoots the very surprised Number One dead. Proclaiming
himself the new Number One, Hanada stumbles
around the ring. The bullet didn't penetrate
his skull, but there is some definite brain
damage here. His ravings continue when he
spots someone coming in. He shoots at
whoever it is, and when the body falls into
the light, we see it's Misako.
Hanada
doesn't even realize what he's done, but
continues on raving until he falls over the
ropes and disappears into the darkness. Then
all is silent.
Is
he dead? No one can say.
The
End
The
first time through Branded
to Kill
rendered me speechless until I was able to
muster a simple "What the hell was
that?!" And it wasn't a vindictive
epitaph, but an excited call for more of the
same. I've now sat
through Branded
to Kill at
least four times and I'm still not sure
what's going on half the time -- it wasn't
'til the third time through did I realize
Hanada's wife was screwing around with his
boss -- but it doesn't matter. The only
other Suzuki film I've managed to see since
is Tokyo
Drifter, and that too has left me hungry
for more.
So
who the heck is this Seijun Suzuki guy. And
what exactly is a yakuza film anyway?
After
serving in the Japanese army during World
War II, Suzuki went to film school and met
the criteria to become and assistant
director. Hired by the prolific Nikkatsu
studios, he was plugged into their assembly
line mode of film production. How
the system worked was a director was
assigned scripts to film and had no input or
influence on which ones. Yakuza
films -- or
gangster films,
were very formulaic and standard low-budget
B-movie fare in Japan at the time. Nikkatsu
was roughly putting out about two of these
per week. Dealing with issues of "girl"
roughly meaning "obligation" or
"matter of honor" this translated
to film where the hero -- a modern day
samurai -- was trapped and obligated to
someone who was also trying to kill them at
the same time. What's an assassin to do?
Suzuki
would eventually direct over forty films for
the company until he went maverick on them
for the last ten drawing the studio's ire. The
director grew tired of the yakuza formula,
and the Nikkatsu system in general, so he
began to ignore his scripts and focused on
the look of his cinematography, lighting,
and set designs; something he did have
control of. The
results were a series of hyper-violent,
surreal exercises in style. Unfortunately,
audiences didn't embrace them either. The
studio brass warned Suzuki to get his act
together and make something more
commercially viable or face the
consequences. Branded
to Kill
was his answer. The DVD includes an
interview with Suzuki where he says after
the film was finished "They told me my
films didn't make any money and they didn't
make any sense" and "You're
fired." He sued for breach of contract
and won, but was unofficially blacklisted
and didn't direct again until the late '70s.
Branded
to Kill
was one helluva of a send off though. A
personal stamp on his career that pokes fun
at and skewers the yakuza formula, and
borderlines as a parody of Suzuki's own over
the top style. It
would probably take me a year to decipher
all the imagery and symbolism in this movie:
From Misako's morbid surroundings, to
Hanada's obsession with rice, to his sudden
bout of impudence brought on by the botched
assassination. Suddenly he can't fire his
gun, or when he does it's out of bullets.
Eventually he rediscovers his manhood and the
last half hour of the film is a train wreck
of strange story twists, rapid editing, and
innovative shoot-outs.
The
Criterion Collection has Branded
to Kill
and Tokyo
Drifter out on DVD. They carry a hefty
price tag of around $30, but they're both
well worth it. Both are presented in
widescreen (a
requisite to fully appreciate what the
director's doing) and contain (disappointingly
brief)
interviews with the director. Suzuki
-- who
looks like an oriental Colonel Sanders,
denies he was trying to do anything odd, or
avant-garde, but just trying to make his
films more fun and enjoyable. Watching the
interview with him gives you a refreshing
perspective on movies just being
entertainment and not necessarily high art.
It may not have been his intention to make
these truly unique and inspired movies, but
the results speak for themselves.
People
tend to throw the word visionary and genius
around a little too easily for my tastes
when talking about movies -- and
I'm one of the worst culprits. Labeling the
latest flavor of the month, new artists, or
newly discovered older artists as the most
brilliant thing to ever happen to cinema
happens way too often. Suzuki, however,
deserves the moniker of both genius and
visionary.
Don't
take my word for it. His films are meant to
be seen and experienced first hand, not read
about or dissected on websites like this.
They are short on plot and long on visuals
and mood. Sometimes it's hard to keep up
with the story and subtitles, and will
require several viewings just to figure out
what the hell is going on. It's
a lot to absorb but I encourage you to go
out and find a copy of this movie or Tokyo
Drifter. Now! What are you waiting for?!
Then prepare yourself to be assaulted by
things you've never seen a movie do before
and watch with mouths agape, just like the
rest of us did.
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