I was in serious need of some a dark and violent Japanese movie and turned to Outrage, a yakuza film by Beat Takeshi. I think his last film that I saw was Zatoichi which I didn't like but really needed to watch something Japanese that wasn't set in fairytale land.
Outrage has your typical yakuza stuff of people in suits sitting in dinghy offices shouting all the time and using words like konoyarou and namenjaneiyo. Its also got a healthy dose of violence including pinky finger cutting, beating people up, gun violence and various entertaining ways of offing people. The movie is basically lots of yelling, shouting and politics in the first 40 or so minutes followed by someone dying every five minutes in the 2nd half.
Problem with Outrage is that there's not much of a story besides everyone tries to screw everyone and last man standing wins. The movie is called Outrage but there's no outrage to be seen or felt. Just characters inhabiting a dog eat dog world where one's life is tied to who your immediate boss is. There are no interesting characters, no relationships to explore just a bunch of random yakuzas.
Outrage is cold and hard yakuza violence porn. Besides that, it doesn't much anything beyond the violence. If only Beat Takeshi did the adaptation of Ryu ga Gotoku instead of Miike Takashi. The story from the first game and Beat Takeshi's gritty violence would have made an awesome yakuza movie. There's also a subplot involving a foreign ambassador and as always, they've cast someone with bad acting and wrote some cringing English dialogue. Watchable but nothing much beyond the violence.
You're pretty much spot on though I've yet to watch his old Yakuza movies. I think I've only seen Kikujiro, Dolls and Zatoichi and I hardly remember anything from the movies.
ReplyDeleteYay Kita Yoshio is truly the king of Japanese cinema and drama. With average 5 projects every year, he easily becomes most productive yet consistent actor ever in Japan
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