Tokyo Drifter, directed by Seijun Suzuki, is a 1967 Japanese gangster movie. Actually, though, it's a Western.
Phoenix Tetsu is an ex-Yakuza. The "ex" is because his boss has gone straight, and he's gone along straight with him and is trying to honor that. Rival Yakuza want to take over the nightclub that they run, but really what they seem to want is to make Tetsu fall.
It's not really a plot-heavy movie. The colors are more the point. There are a lot of them, and hairpin edits, weird visual touches. Revolving around a discotheque, it takes a certain infectious pride in its artificiality.
2 comments:
we saw this once a while back in halifax. the only seijun suzuki movie we've watched. &, yeah, it's as much a meditation on cinema itself as it is a 'movie'. there was a surprising amount of experimentation & artistic freedom in japanese cinema at the time. one of our favorites from back then is the very strange & disturbing 'kwaidan': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YadApPG8W7Q
now, if you're in the mood for a little humor with your japanese crime movie, there's the more recent, quite excellent 'the most terrible time in my life', featuring everyone's favorite japanese detective, 'maiku hama': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nSnLUNDKCY
&, speaking of experimentation & artistic freedom, last night we rewatched 'apocalypto', a movie which appears to have only improved with age. an obvious labor of love, it's mel gibson telling a story that hollywood never really got around to, & telling it as well as hollywood might ever have been capable of. a genuinely visceral, powerful, & mind-boggling fable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngWBddVNVZs
"Meditation on cinema itself" covers it about as well as anything. There's certainly a good deal of camp involved as well, due to things like the color, the setting etc. The secretary who goes around reading a book and laughing is an inspired bit of weirdness.
I actually watched Kwaidan while visiting you guys in Portland. My memories of it are somewhat fragmentary, but it did strike me as quite atmospheric.
The Most Terrible Time of My Life sounds quite promising indeed. Very much sounds like a movie that people enjoyed making. I'm a little embarrassed by how long it took me to make the Maiku Hama/Mike Hammer connection.
You talked a little about Apocalypto on Sunday. I like the idea of stripping the chase scene down to its essential elements as Gibson had the idea to do.
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