Meeting up with 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 as 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. When his rice is finally done, he happily embraces the pot and huffs the vapor emanating from it, repeatedly, while Mami gets awfully chummy with Yahumara, complaining about her husbands strange hang-ups; seems Hanada has a major jonesing for boiled rice that borders on orgasm when he whiffs its aroma.

When Hanada and Kasuga meet at their assigned car for the escort, they find their driver dead in the back seat. Not a good omen. Hanada tells his twitchy partner to ignore it and they'll just 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 for an update, 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 totally soused and Hanada must take over the driving. And at the exit of the next tunnel, they run right into an ambush. While the client takes cover in the back, his protectors spill outside and return fire. And as their car is turned to Swiss cheese, Kasuga loses it until 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 his partner is outmatched but fails 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 jacket off, lies down, and pulls the coat over his head and expires, thus 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. But Sukara safely retreats into the bunker and returns fires. Taking a gas can out of the trunk, Hanada storms the bunker and tosses the can inside. He fires at it, which ignites the gas into some impromptu napalm. And as the bunker rapidly burns, Sukara, engulfed in flames, keeps on shooting, bursting 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 scene with little concern. Meanwhile, 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 neo-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 into 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. This is noir on speed. Tarantino wishes he came up with stuff like this! 

And before we get back to the review, I have to pause for a sec 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 madcap minutes yet to go! So let's get back to it...

After dropping the client off, Hanada's car breaks down and as he waits out a driving rainstorm, a girl in a convertible stops to give him a lift. Though the top's down, 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 then 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 even this 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 tries to read the paper while 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 that 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 his 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 instantly thinks Hanada's been screwing around on her. She gets hysterical, so he locks Ms. Fickle-Butt 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. When Hanada asks who wants this man dead, Misako answers that 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. Training 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 and 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. Returning home, and despite the earlier spat, he 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 but he just 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 hundreds -- 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 wall 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."

Anyways, Hanada keeps running away and then keeps coming back to kill her, but try as he might, he can't pull the trigger. And to be fair, she's having the exact same problem trying to kill him. Then 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. When Mami answers the phone, this time Hanada doesn't say anything and hangs up. Uh-oh. He heads over to Yahumara's apartment and finds Mami inside. When she sees him, she screams and then promptly passes out. And when she wakes back up, she begs for her life, swearing 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, then leaves while part of her skull and scalp spins around the flushing toilet.

While waiting for Yahumara to return home, Hanada finds a bottle of Napoleon brandy and finishes it off before he hears someone unlocking 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 it open -- and the body has a very familiar bullet wound to the head. Hanada quickly looks outside but there is no one else around.

Returning to Misako's darkened apartment, when Hanada turns on the lights it triggers a movie-projector. The flickering images projected on the wall shows a naked and bound Misako undergoing some kind of torture. As the interrogator angrily asks why she didn't kill Hanada, when she doesn't answer, a blowtorch moves closer to her flesh. Watching, Hanada begs the moving pictures of Misako to tell him where she is and he'll rescue her. When the interrogator keeps asking why she failed, Hanada reads her lips that admit it's because she loves him. But this admission doesn't save her, and soon the heat grows too intense and Misako dies. The film then changes to scenes of a pier near the harbor, and the same angry 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 where he receives a phone call. Recognizing the caller as the client he helped escort earlier, the client pokes fun at Hanada for all the mistakes he's made. Piqued, Hanada asks who he is, really. The mystery client tells him to piece it together: Hanada is the Number Three Assassin, and since he burned-up the Number Two Assassin (Sukara), that means he can only be one person: the 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 his car is peppered with bullets. Not realizing that Hanada jumped in the drink and swam around behind them, they keep on shooting as he sneaks up and takes out the driver and shooter 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 swears he won't kill him now because he owed Hanada a debt for protecting him earlier. But the score is now even and as he leaves, 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. Then 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 -- indefinitely, apparently, and who knows how long the slowly the haggard and disintegrating 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. As the tormenting phone-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 and after going a safe distance, he stops at a restaurant. But just as he's about to take a snort-full of rice, the waiter says he has a phone call. E'yup; 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 shit 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 N.O.'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. When the doorbell rings, the two lock arms and answer it together and accept 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. Agreeing to leave their weapons behind, they 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 proves empty except for a note that's jammed into the clip; it reads to meet him at a nearby gym at 1am, sharp, to settle things or he can be a coward and stay away. Pissed, Hanada crumples the note and 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! Then 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, Hanada'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 in ambush. And waits. And waits.

And then waits some more.

Two hours pass and nothing happens, and the stress of it finally breaks Hanada. He starts giggling, relieved, and heads toward the empty ring. Realizing 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?" As he continues to rant, we spot him strapping something around his head. Then something moves in the shadows; a shot rings out, and Hanada falls to the mat. Dead.

Number One moves into the light, 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. Seems 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, killing him. Proclaiming himself the new Number One, Hanada stumbles around the ring; N.O.'s bullet didn't penetrate his skull, but there is some definite brain damage here. And as his ravings continue, he spots someone coming in, silhouetted in the entrance. Completely unhinged, 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 and 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 it rendered me speechless until I was able to muster a simple "What the hell was that?!" But this 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 -- hell, 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?

Well, 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 and Nikkatsu was roughly putting out about two of these per week. Dealing with issues of "giri" 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 honorable assassin to do, right? Kill everybody and sort it out later.

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. Seems 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 and 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 Criterion 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 both Branded to Kill and Tokyo Drifter out on DVD. And even thought they carry a hefty price tag of around $30, 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.

These days, people tend to throw the word visionary and genius around a little too easily for my tastes when talking about movies -- and yeah, 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.

Hell, 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 but 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.

This review is part of a Seijun Suzuki Roundtable:

3B Theater teams up with Smokey X. Digger over at Iniquity Films for a look at two of the infamous director's speed-noir thrillers.

Iniquity Films:

Tokyo Drifter