Compelling Work From Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa's SERPENT'S PATH and EYES OF THE SPIDER, thematic twins,  were both strong example's of his considerable talent and ability to take a narrative in unexpected directions.

Both involve child killing, torture, and vengeance, but are primarily focused on behavior more than action. Made around the same time and approaching almost the same events from different perspectives, they make for a mind-bending duo.

The influence of Takeshi Kitano on Kurosawa is clear. SERPENT'S PATH plays, at times, like Kitano's VIOLENT COP, right down to its warehouse location, opening visuals, and matter-of-fact violence.

EYES OF THE SPIDER, which boasts a larger cast of characters, references Kitano's HANNA-BI, A SCENE AT THE SEA, and BOILING POINT. Its deep silences are effective, giving its violent explosions enormous impact. The husband/wife relationship is also reminiscent of Kitano's work on HANNA-BI.

Both films are well worth catching, and are available from UK distributor Third Window Films.

Kitano's OUTRAGE is outrageously good

 It's only January 5, but already I've seen a film that will surely occupy a prime position on my top ten list at year's end.

As my gut predicted, Takeshi Kitano's Outrage (Autoreiji; 2010)  is a controlled masterpiece, and the best film the auteur has made since the sizzling Hanna-bi (aka Fireworks).

Kitano's yakuza films are fascinated by the small details of gangster politics, so it is a small detail -- a wrong decision -- that triggers a brutal war between factions in this deft, crisp, exceptional piece of filmmaking. As usual, the drama provokes splashes of crimson that denote the disintegration of a crime family. Kitano, though not the key participant, takes an enforcer role that shows us his Sunday best.

Written, edited, and directed by Kitano, Outrage does quite the opposite of glorify the gangster life. It paints for us an underground society that is, for most, a vicious hell on earth where nobody is to be trusted, money is more important than anything, and relationships are not worth spit.    Every act is one of self-advancement, and every step on the ladder to the top is but a cruel mirage for gullible players.

The violence is very wince-worthy and impactful. We get chopsticks jammed in ear drums, an excruciating assault with a dentist drill, and a brutally beautiful scene involving a car, a rope, and one unlucky fuck whose time is up.

Music by Keiichi Suzuki, who also scored Kitano's Zatoichi, has a somber, electronic base that adds an interesting but not distracting element to the proceedings. Katsumi Yanagijima, who shot Fukasaku's brilliant Battle Royale, does a superb job with Outrage's visuals. The soft, subtle tones perfectly contrast with the frequent displays of glorious and disturbing Grand Guignol.

 This is a harrowing, compelling yakuza drama from a master of the moving image.

***

The Japanese Blu-ray is of exceptional quality and is English subtitled

It is available from amazon.co.jp or cdjapan.co.jp

Violent Panic For Kitano

Very happy to read two extremely positive reviews of Takeshi Kitano's new yakuza film, Outrage, out of Cannes this morning.

The writers compared it to the director's best works such as Violent Cop and Sonatine. Personally, my favorite flick of his from this period is Hanna-B (aka 'Fireworks'), followed closely by Violent Cop and Sonatine, but I ain't gonna argue the point.

Recently, Kitano has been flying in other directions with works such as Achilles and the Tortoise (a film I liked quite a bit), Glory to the Filmmaker, and Takeshis' (I'm a fan of this also, with reservations) .

What rubbed me the right way in Variety's review of Outrage ('Autoreiji') was the referencing of Kinji Fukasaku's yakuza work.

In Maggie Lee's Hollywood Reporter review, she wrote:

'In fact, his representation of internecine gang rivalry and imploding power structure stands up to Kinji Fukasaku's seminal "Battle Without Honor" series in complexity and unsentimental attitude, with humor as mean and dry as a straight-up martini.'

Such referencing of one of my three favorite directors of all time has made me super-hot for this flick (not that I wasn't already).

I've been binging on Fukusaku's flicks for the last few months in an effort to catch up on everything I haven't seen. Fortunately, many more are becoming available in various shapes and forms from a litany of sources.

His Violent Panic - The Big Crash ('Boso Panniku: Daigekitotsu'; 76) really blew me away, and not for the reasons I imagined it would. The film has long been touted as featuring one of the most spectacular car chase sequences ever filmed in Japanese cinema. While the chase sequence is impressive, it is more like an extended car rally in the It's A Wild, Wild, Wild, Wild World vein. Fukasaku revisited the same type of scene himself in his '92 The Triple Cross and did it better.

Interestingly, Panic's opening stanza features a montage of bank robberies, also replicated in Triple Cross. There are several other similarities, too.

Car chases aside, the magic of Violent Panic can be found in its rich character mix and blending of melodrama, violence, unsentimental romance, and crime thriller elements. Fukasaku, whose last complete film was Battle Royale, thrived in the crime genre, and was able to make sense of seemingly disassociated elements within a particular story, finally knitting them together in a cinematic ball of dynamite.

Speaking of dynamite, crime flicks don't come much more incendiary than Fukasaku's blistering Hokuriku Proxy War, a '77 effort set in a predominantly snowbound area of Japan in which a yakuza torpedo, played with brute authority by Hiroki Matsukata, violently resists the outside influence of big city yakuza types. His war against them is stunning to behold.

Closing out recent viewings was the director's Outlaw Killers -- Three Mad Dog Brothers, a truly stunning tale of three violent, amoral miscreants who kill, steal, chop, stab and rape their way through one hundred minutes of flapping celluloid. Made in '72, the same year as the masterful Under the Flag of the Rising Sun and Street Mobster (Fukasaku was one busy fucker that year!), this frantic walk on the wild side is buoyed by a brutal turn from Bunta Sugawara, who plays a character not unlike Tetsuya Watari's psycho gangster 'Rikio Ishikawa' in Graveyard of Honor, and Fukasaku's in-your-face and at-your-balls direction that drops you in the middle of the carnage. Made just prior to the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series, the energy levels, as usual, are through the roof.

With Takeshi Kitano's Outrage on the horizon, and Fukasaku being whispered in the same breath, it's good times for cinephiles.

A Win For The Pink Team

Hands up if you can tell me what these two films have in common.

The former is this year's recipient of the Best Foreign Film Oscar.

The latter, Serial Rape (Renzoku Boko) is a dark, grim, gritty pink film from '83.

In my fertilecelluloid review of the film on imdb in January, 2005, I could barely contain my enthusiasm for it:

A cinema projectionist (Ren Osugi) becomes obsessed with the female writer of a rape-themed film.

The writer witnesses (shown in flashback) a rape by a tattooed man when she was just a moppet.

From this simple premise erupts a nasty, erotic, tightly directed "abuse" flick.

This has something for everyone and is beautifully shot and lit. The surreal opening sequence of a rapist chasing a schoolgirl through a tunnel establishes the grim, almost industrial tone.

There is much (white) panty fondling during the attack sequences and the level of viciousness is refreshingly high.

A gentle lesbian seduction in a bathroom is volcanic for what it suggests, as is the extended, off-the-meter lesbian tryst that follows.

Actress Kaoru Orimoto, who plays the pink film scriptwriter and target of Osugi's obsession, is incredibly hot and has the body and face of a goddess.

There are many reasons to hunt Serial Rape (Renzaku Boko) down.

A fog-filled sequence in a forest where our "hero" disposes of a beautiful dead body is gorgeously shot and directed.

Another highlight is a rape sequence that takes place in a front of a giant movie screen where a similar act of transgression is being shown.

The director pushes the boundaries towards the film's climax when he has Osugi burning a woman's crotch with his lighter moments before she blinds him and watches him plummet to his well-deserved death.

Osugi (who went on to a sparkling career working with such luminaries as Takeshi Kitano; he was the wheelchair-bound Horibe in Hanna-Bi) is entirely convincing as the twisted miscreant projectionist.

Not for the knee-jerk crowd, but certainly a prize find for the true believers.

The 2008 Departures (Okuibito) was up against The Baader Meinhof Complex (Germany), The Class (France), Revanche (Austria) and Waltz With Bashir (Israel).

Director Yojiro Takita's receipt of the Oscar signifies a triumph never celebrated before.

It is a mighty win for the Pink Team.

Yes, I received an urgent message from Japanese director Tomoaki (Weatherwoman) Hosoyama informing me that Takita's victory is being celebrated in Japan's pink film industry.

Fifty-four-year old director Takita is not just the man of the foreign film hour, he is also the talent behind Serial Rape (Renzoku Boko) and more than forty other feature films, many of them proudly pink.

Conceding that Departures is a more conservative film for Takita, Mr. Hosoyama, who once worked for the director in a behind-the-scenes capacity, wrote: "Now in Japan, Takita has become the man of the hour. I know he is giving a wry grin. He has never been interested in getting prizes. He has the spirit of a true workman in making films. That's what I respect about him."

It is, indeed, a terrific honor for Mr. Takita, and a sobering reminder once again that -- in Japan, at least -- the trenches of the softcore film industry are a fertile breeding ground for tomorrow's movers and shakers in cinema.

Congratulations, Mr. Takita, you are a true Apostle of Pulp.