Yakuza

PALE FLOWER: bracing neo-noir

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Ryô Ikebe in PALE FLOWER

Coming up on Turner Classic Movies on June 18, the Japanese neo-noir Pale Flower is a slow burn that erupts into thrilling set pieces. This is pioneering neo-noir. Pale Flower is writer-director Masahiro Shinoda’s masterpiece; its look and feel is as different from classic noir as are Elevator to the Gallows and Blast of Silence.

Maraki (Ryô Ikebe) is a fortyish Yazuka hit man, just released from loyally serving a prison term. He went away for offing a gangland rival, but now the two gangs have become allies. Out gambling with fellow Yakuza, he encounters the much younger woman Saeko (Mariko Kaga). The stoic and completely self-contained Maraki becomes fascinated by – and then obsessed with – Saeko, who lives her life seeking thrill after thrill.

PALE FLOWER

Maraki and Saeko meet gambling on the Japanese card game of hanafuda (flower cards). She is the only woman at a table surrounded by male gangsters. Shinoda makes the tension of card games resemble that of walking into a hostile bar or waiting an Old West quick draw gunfight. The card games are silent but for the ritual betting and the players clicking their cards. The film’s title refers to both hanafuda and Saeko.

Mariko Kaga in PALE FLOWER

Just who is this mystery woman? Muraki is snagged, but he is too cool to search out her background. His obsession is more complicated than sexual passion alone, although there is a sexual element (watch whether he acts on it when he can). The mystery makes Saeko (the then 20-year-old Mariko Kaga in only her fourth movie) all the more captivating.

In another gripping set piece, Saeko races her sports car through Tokyo’s tunnels and overpasses at 2:30 AM. In the passenger seat, Muraki is transfixed by her recklessness. He’s not thrilled by the careening wild ride, he’s thrilled by Saeko’s compulsion to seek the thrill.

Mariko Kaga and Ryô Ikebe in PALE FLOWER

The ultimate thrill might be to accompany a hit man on the job. The climactic three-minute scene is a mob hit in a church, set to an aria, Henry Purcell’s Dido’s Lament. It is operatic – and remarkably similar to Francis Ford Coppola’s later montage in The Godfather where Michael Corleone’s assassins kills all his enemies while he is standing in church at the christening of his sister’s baby. Muarki’s murder-for-hire is up-close-and-personal.

When Maraki and Saeko are on-screen, Pale Flower is dramatically and stylistic Stylistic – the card games, the car race, the final killing, In contrast, we see the mundane plotting of the Yazuka bosses (but not their crimes) as they kibbitz at the horse races. Their underlings go bowling.

Does it all matter? is a central theme in film noir. Pale Flower’s powerful final prison scene is the the ultimate neo-noir ending.

Pale Flower is included in Roger Ebert’s Great Movies. Pale Flower is challenging to find; it can be streamed with a subscription to Criterion Collection or Kanopy, and it plays occasionally on TCM, including on June 18.

Ryô Ikebe in PALE FLOWER

DVD/Stream of the Week: Outrage Beyond

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Takeshi Kitano dares a Yakuza to shoot him in OUTRAGE BEYOND

Takeshi Kitano returns to star in the Japanese gangster movie Outrage Beyond. It’s a sequel to writer-director Kitano’s 2011 Outrage, of which I wrote:

If you’re looking for a hardass gangster movie with deliciously bad people doing acts of extreme violence upon each other, Outrage is the film for you. But what makes Outrage stand out is the pace and stylishness of all the nastiness, as if Quentin Tarantino had made Goodfellas (only without all the extra dialogue about foot rubs and the Royale with cheese)…Kitano, much like Charles Bronson, has the worn and rough face of a man who has seen too much disappointment and brutality.

Outrage was more of a tragic noir, because you know that most of the characters probably won’t survive – and they know it, too. There is less foreboding in Outrage Beyond, which is just glorious exploitation – gangster mayhem splattering the streets. Because this is a Yakuza film, Kitano delivers the minimum one full body tattoo and one severed finger. But he also makes ingeniously lethal use of a pitching machine in a batting cage, and “Let’s play baseball” is the cruelest line in the film.

I saw Outrage Beyond at the San Francisco International Film Festival. It’s now available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, Google Play and XBOX Video.

Outrage Beyond: glorious gangster exploitation

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Takeshi Kitano dares a Yakuza to shoot him in OUTRAGE BEYOND

Takeshi Kitano returns to star in the Japanese gangster movie Outrage Beyond.  It’s a sequel to writer-director Kitano’s 2011 Outrage, of which I wrote:

If you’re looking for a hardass gangster movie with deliciously bad people doing acts of extreme violence upon each other, Outrage is the film for you.  But what makes Outrage stand out is the pace and stylishness of all the nastiness, as if Quentin Tarantino had made Goodfellas (only without all the extra dialogue about foot rubs and the Royale with cheese)…Kitano, much like Charles Bronson, has the worn and rough face of a man who has seen too much disappointment and brutality.

Outrage was more of a tragic noir, because you know that most of the characters probably won’t survive – and they know it, too.   There is less foreboding in Outrage Beyond, which is just glorious exploitation – gangster mayhem splattering the streets.  Because this is a Yakuza film, Kitano delivers the minimum one full body tattoo and one severed finger.  But he also makes ingeniously lethal use of a pitching machine in a batting cage, and “Let’s play baseball” is the cruelest line in the film.

I saw Outrage Beyond at the San Francisco International Film Festival.

DVD of the Week: Outrage

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Okay, the Oscars are over.  In case you’re done with high-falutin’ cinema, here’s a hardass gangster movie with deliciously bad people doing acts of extreme violence upon each other – Outrage (Autoreiji).  Like any good Yakuza film, there are lots of full body tattoos and severed fingers.

But what makes Outrage stand out is the pace and stylishness of all the nastiness, as if Quentin Tarantino had made Goodfellas (only without all the extra dialogue about foot rubs and the Royale with cheese).

Director Takeshi Kitano also stars, credited as Beat Takeshi.  Takeshi, much like Charles Bronson, has the worn and rough face of a man who has seen too much disappointment and brutality.

Outrage is just filmed too brightly to qualify as a film noir, but the story has all the tragedy of a classic noir.  You’re rooting for the characters to survive, but you know that they probably won’t – and they know it, too.

There is also a crime boss so cynical and duplicitous that he puts the Sopranos to shame.

Outrage is not a great movie, but is plenty entertaining if you’re in the mood.