Fantastic!

A Brilliant Conflict

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

A hit-man, known simply as "Number 3" (after his ranking in the hit- man community) is hired to protect a key crime figure. Things don't go according to plan and he finds himself on the outer with his organisation. Furthermore, this brings him into conflict with the mysterious and dangerous Number 1.Stylish but random. There was heaps of potential - from the outset the movie looked like a Japanese film-noir. The plot was quite gritty and interesting and seemed set up for a classic story.Unfortunately, it wasn't to be. The plot develops in rather random fashion. Things just happen out of blue, often with no continuity from or reference to previous scenes. It's as if director Seijun Suzuki was trying too hard to be arty and ended up just being unfocused. Throw in some hit-and-miss performances and the overall result is disappointing.

Film criticism, as I see it, is not so much to do with coming to understand the films' shortcomings but instead the viewer's own failure to connect with them, and the reasons for rejection. So it is, then, that "Branded to Kill" (1967), while equally as exuberant and berserk in many similarly positive ways as Suzuki's other widely regarded yakuza film, "Tokyo Drifter" (1966), misses the mark with this particular film enthusiast.While Suzuki's adventurous visual widescreen composition and impressionistic editing remain the most rewarding aspects also ins particular film, I'm left wondering why "Tokyo Drifter" worked for me and this one didn't. Perhaps the former was easier to place in contradistinction to the genres and "film mentality" it's toying with. Perhaps it was an "easier" film, more "conventional" and thus "conventional" enough to be more readily appreciated. Or perhaps we've come so far in self-reference and parody both in the art-house and mainstream that the latter film simply hasn't aged as gracefully. I just thought it stretched too far, never inviting me in. I've felt the same about the most disconnected Greenaway, too.The Criterion Collection has other Suzukis on offer, and I think I'll somehow come back here when I've experienced them. Perhaps by then I'll understand more of Suzuki, and/or myself.

I noticed that all the reviewers liked this movie--and some absolutely adored it. I guess I'll be the dissenting voice, as I thought that a movie that tries so hard to be weird and incomprehensible is not worth my trouble. After all, several admitted that the narrative made little sense and the movie needed to be seen repeatedly in order to fully understand it. I say "why bother". If I cannot understand a movie and am confused by it, my first instinct is NOT to see it again! In many ways, this film looks almost as if Jean-Luc Godard took drugs, went to Japan and made a film. And if you like this sort of bizarre fare, then by all means watch it. I just want a film that makes some sense! The film is about an assassin who looks like a giant hamster because of his freakish looking cheeks (Jô Shishido--who actually paid to have plastic surgery to give his this look). He is somehow considered the #3 assassin in Japan, though I didn't realize that there was any sort of a ranking organization (maybe this is like the BCI and American college football). He wants to be #1 and much of the film shows him on various assignments killing people. Some of this is pretty neat and stylish, some of this is just strange. When he's not out killing people to improve his standings, he's at home have very, very intense and super-athletic sex with his wife.A pretty young Japanese lady with a big nose hires Mr. #3 to do an almost impossible assassination. When it fails, the film gets really goofy, as first his wife tries to kill him, then the big-nosed lady does. None of this has any sort of a linear or comprehensible narrative and you wonder if the film makers were on crack or schizophrenic.Throughout the film there are lots of bizarre fetish-like flourishes. There are lots of small dead birds--and they keep appearing throughout the film. One even has a needle through its neck. I sure felt sorry for the creatures--why killing them was necessary, I don't know. Also, Mr. #3 also had a weird fetish for the smell of boiling rice.Later, the wife returns and wonders why Mr. #3 is upset that she tried to kill her. All is apparently forgiven--that is until he knocks her down and urinates on her (at least that APPEARS to be what he's doing). She then spills the beans about some dumb plot and begins to cry in a very annoying fashion (I wanted to kill her at this point). Moments later, her clothes are off and she's begging him to do her--at which point he blows her away (I mean he kills her) and you see her head in the toilet. Nothing like a good romance, huh?! Even later, Mr. #3 finds the big-nosed lady dead along with film showing how she died. I think it's supposed to be touching and Mr. #3 cried a lot--though I had absolutely no idea why. Didn't she try to kill him ten minutes earlier?! At this point, Mr. #3 gets a call from what might be Mr. #1. He issues him a challenge and somehow Mr. #3 manages to kill everyone waiting for him at some place near the harbor. But, Mr. #1 is not there! Mr. #1 then phones to say he IS Mr. #1 and will one day kill him.The rest of the film consists of the two men trying to kill each other--as Mr. #1 calls to taunt Mr. #3 periodically. This test of wills seems to go on for days--during which 3 does a lot of mindless things that I won't even bother to describe. Eventually, Mr. #1 comes for a social call and the two of them sleep together (no sex, mind you). In the next scene, Mr. #3 is so worried about letting down his guard that he pees himself rather than take a bathroom break. No THAT'S dedication. During this long absurdist sleepover that never seems to end, the viewer is left wondering what the crap is happening. All you know is #1 and 3 could kill each other but mostly just sit around staring in space. In fact, the entire last third of the movie is just this nonsense.Eventually, Mr. #1 and #3 get around to FINALLY trying to actually kill each other--during which time Mr. #3 sweats like a hog. Thankfully, once the deed is done, the movie mercifully ends. And I have seldom been this happy to see a movie end!!! Overall, this is the lamest excuse for entertainment. The film is incomprehensible, has ridiculous characters and leads me to wonder why they made such a film? After all, 'normals' certainly won't enjoy it and it seems like it was only made for the select elite--those who "get it". Heck, haven't any of you heard the story about the Emperor's new clothes?! The only reason I give this a 2 and not a 1 is because a few of the killings were kind of cool AND it had a happy ending (because it finally ended).By the way, this film has lots and lots of nudity. However, the Japanese convention was not to show pubic hair, so all full frontal shots have the naughty regions mysteriously covered. Regardless, it's not a film you want to show to your mother!

This movie is notable for its unusual deviation from the Yakuza/gangster format. Aesthetically it features tastefully lit sets, well-choreographed violence, and weird moments of goofball surrealism. The main characters walk an interesting line between cool and completely weird. Although, by the end they've gone way deep into the territory of being totally creepy.The plot kinda hard to follow, but it's about this hombre, Jo, the No. 3 killer for the Yakuza, and how there is a competition for rank between the top killers which sometimes involves them being hired out against one another on jobs. On the side, Jo is a sex-maniac (with a sex-maniac wife) who is erotically infatuated with the smell of boiling rice and some dead-bug-collecting woman who is more goth than Wednesday Addams. That's about as concise of a "plot" as you get. Oh--and no one has ever seen the no. 1 "Phantom" killer, so clearly we're gonna be building up to that. Capiche? Hahaha....Eventually the movie becomes a chore to watch. Some of the cuts between scenes are completely abrasive, a lot of "plot points" happen with no explanation or reason, and right when you think the movie is going to end it goes into another 20 or so minutes of a totally insane stand-off. Yeah, what plot does exist is sometimes abandoned for extended periods of time to show montages of sex-having. You heard me: montages of sex-having.I thought some of the stuff during the appearance of the "Phantom" killer was pretty funny and the shoot-outs were really well executed and occasionally had a dark sense of humor, but that didn't save the draining quality of the pacing and editing. And really, I understand where the off-beat elements come from -- you can feel the director playing around, trying to enjoy himself in a genre that he's bored to tears with. Some of the film makes me wonder if it inspired some of Miike's more light-hearted moments, with the random jokes amidst fatal violence and the little surrealist vignettes that come out of nowhere.It's worth a look, but it is a goofy self-conscious movie about film-noir, made with a late '60s panache. That's right, panache!