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The question is what to do with the Yakuza thriller, Losey asks the same of the spy film (and provides practically the same answer) in his concurrent Modesty Blaise. The granular monochrome of the prelude promptly gives way to a psychedelic riot, the powder-blue suit of the callow underworld operative (Tetsuya Watari) turns out to be the most muted element in one gleefully gaudy composition after another. Disbanding of the old gang, cf. Haskin's I Walk Alone, one kingpin (Ryuji Kita) is an Ozu holdover scrambling to go legit and the other (Eimei Esumi) is a pair of pinched dark glasses muscling in on his territory. "Money and power rule now. Honor means nothing!" Double-crosses and vendettas and henchmen nicknamed Phoenix and Viper and Shooting Star, just enough plot for Seijun Suzuki to unleash a full Pop Art onslaught. Purple backdrops for go-go juveniles at the Manhole Jazz Club, an auric glow for the giant lounge where the chanteuse (Chieko Matsubara) warbles her ballad over and over, the white of a snowy vista abruptly unsettled as a crimson lantern slides into frame. "I'm trying to stay out of trouble. How come it always finds me?" A secretary giggles at comic-book panels, she takes a bullet and the screen is slashed red. "No sense of duty," laments the pretty-boy wanderer, who croons his own theme song on the way to a shootout. "I know not where my grave will be. I'm the Tokyo Drifter." Tashlin sets are prevalent, Donen's Arabesque and Edwards' The Great Race are variously seen, Russell's Billion Dollar Brain is near. Showdown at the cavernous sound stage, the modernist torus glowing in the void and the spent pistol landing on the piano. "Your legend ends today." Branded to Kill caps Suzuki's intrepid derangement. Cinematography by Shigeyoshi Mine. With Tamio Kawaji, Hideaki Nitani, Eiji Go, Tomoko Hamakawa, Isao Tamagawa, Michio Hino, Takeshi Yoshida, and Hiroshi Cho.
--- Fernando F. Croce |