I love the Yakuza. I mean, who doesn’t? Tattoos and guns combined with complex hierarchy makes for a grand time at the talkies. Beat Takashi is such a solid filmmaker and actor that I will see anything he does. Unless he stars in the Japanese version of Dark Knight where Justin Beiber plays Robin, then maybe I would pass. But put him as a mid-level gangster trying to slug out an existence in modern Tokyo and I am ready to go.
I love the Yakuza. I mean, who doesn’t? Tattoos and guns combined with complex hierarchy makes for a grand time at the talkies. Beat Takashi is such a solid filmmaker and actor that I will see anything he does. Unless he stars in the Japanese version of Dark Knight where Justin Beiber plays Robin, then maybe I would pass. But put him as a mid-level gangster trying to slug out an existence in modern Tokyo and I am ready to go.
It starts out cold and icy, then gets crazy. Mr. Takashi plays a clan chairman (the name for mob boss in the Yakuza) who finds out one of his underlings is making deals with a drug dealing rival family. Well this info is not well received. And bam! We are off and running on a slew of deals and double deals and shaky back room alliances that change faster than a bullet train. All of course end with the bodies stacking up like firewood at a ski lodge in November.
Yes, it is hard to keep up with who works for what clan and who is making a shifty side deal with another, but don’t let this turn you away. I only ask that you see the film twice! Then it gets clear. And in this clarity is the focused gold of Beat Takashi’s brilliance as a filmmaker and actor. He plays the relic gangster who holds on to the old ways maybe a little too long, but his grip is tight with eyes that have seen and created volcanic horror, for he is a career mobster with a short fuse and a heart of stone. He almost wants to be disrespected so he can unlock the hell hounds of his soul upon the fancy suit wearing up and comers who are just in it for the girls. Not knowing that these men built a world of vice profits from corruption and blood.
This film has one of my favorite elements of most gangster films: That the honor of criminals is talked about with such solid reverence and yet crumbles like a junkie in a long line at the methadone clinic. For the whole criminal world is built on greed, which is the termite of valor. Watching the clans turn on each other in one broken vow after another is better than the presidential primaries cheap whorehouse tactics. Actually I apologize to all prostitutes. For your profession is far more honest and noble than that of a politician.
How this film depicts the back stabbing and double dealing is glorious, like a Japanese Jim Thompson novel. With bowing instead of handshakes. It is why the criminal world is alluring and horrifying all at once. Just when you think, “Those mob guys have it made!” You realize that behind the fancy cars and giggling ladies in small dresses is a cold viper with long fangs who is going to exact a toll for all the greedy deals you made. In the end we, as the audience, are left with “Thank God I’m a regular person! ‘Cause I’d rather drive my 98 Rav4 with the comfort of knowing it isn’t owned by a crime boss.” Or something like that.
Anyway see this film at least twice and then watch Beat Takashi in Blind Swordsmen from 2003. And then Palm Strike yourself every time you think being a gangster would be “cool”.
Graham Elwood