Tetsuya Watari Movies
Internationally acclaimed director and Japanese media phenomenon Takeshi Kitano follows up his well-regarded Kikujiro with this straight-ahead gangster saga with a cross-cultural twist. The film focuses on Yamamoto (Kitano), a yakuza forced out of the country when a gang war all but wipes out his clan. Armed with a fake credit card, a forged passport, and a bag of money, he journeys to the strange and foreign land of Los Angeles to join his half-brother Ken (Claude Maki), who works as a low-rent street tough alongside fast-talking hustler Denny (Omar Epps). With brutal efficiency, the poker-faced Yamamoto starts staking out turf and organizing Ken's mob into one of the most powerful criminal syndicates in the city. As his gang grows in number and power, he is joined by Kato (Kitano regular Susumu Terajima), his former lieutenant from Japan, who entreats Little Tokyo's pathological crime boss Shirase (Masaya Kato) to join the group. Yamamoto seems unstoppable until his gang runs afoul of the Mafia. Soon, all that he built quickly and bloodily starts to unravel as every member in his gang is marked for death. This film was screened at the 2000 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Takeshi Kitano, Claude Maki, (more)
A haunted detective whose unconventional methods virtually define the term rogue cop is set up for failure when his corrupt superiors assign him the task of heading the organized crime beat in this landmark yakuza masterpiece from the director of Battle Royale and Black Lizard. His guilt at having widowed the woman who has now become his lover weighing heavier on his shoulders with each passing day, Detective Kuroiwa (Tetsuya Watari) is given strict "hands off" orders when assigned the task of cleaning up the Nishida underworld. Suddenly plunged into a far-reaching power-play conspiracy sanctioned by the police and pitting the violent yakuza gangsters against one another for a bloody battle to the death, the renegade cop finds his already-precarious situation even further complicated when he becomes romantically entangled with Keiko (Maiko Kaji), the half-Korean wife of Nishida's most notorious crime boss. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Vengeance Is Mine meets La Strada in Japanese gangland auteur Kinji Fukasaku's real-life yakuza drama about a sociopathic loser who always seems to make the wrong decision. Opening in the blackmarkets of Shinjuku just after the war, Ishikawa (played by matinee icon Tetsuya Watari) works as muscleman for the Kawada crime family. After a raid on a Chinese gang's gambling parlor turns into street warfare, Ishikawa finds himself taking refuge in the boarding room of frightened waif and war orphan Chieko (Yumi Takigawa). After a brief departure, he returns, stinking drunk, to collect his belongings and eventually he rapes her. Meanwhile, Ishikawa almost sparks a gang war after beating up a prostitute of a rival gang. Though the Kawada clan's connection with the American occupation forces eventually forestalls any bloodshed, Ishikawa's godfather (Hana Hajime) balls him out and humiliates him. In retaliation, Ishikawa jumps his boss and stabs him an inch short of his life -- a cardinal sin in the crime world. Ishikawa again takes refuge with Chieko, who in spite of his previous brutishness takes pity on the battered and bleeding gangster and nurses him to health. After a brief stint in jail, Ishikawa learns that he is spared execution only through the efforts of his old friend and crime boss Kozaburo Imai (Tatsuo Umemiya); he is instead banished from the Tokyo yakuza world for ten years. Imai arranges for him to lay low in Osaka, where he lives in a flophouse, spending his time whoring, developing tuberculosis, and shooting up dope. He soon gets bored of Osaka, and ventures back to Tokyo with his witless junky sidekick Ozaki (Kunie Tanaka). After another stint in jail, he marries Chieko, who has by this point developed full-fledged tuberculosis. This film was ranked one of the best Japanese films of 1975 by the prestigious film journal Kinema Jumpo. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- 1974
This Japanese-made film is basically a religious tract for the Nichiren Shoshu Association. The NSA is an atypically evangelistic self-labelled Buddhist group which has made some headway in the U.S. with the likes of performers Tina Turner and Patrick Duffy. The story concerns the religious conversion of a man imprisoned already for religious deviance, and is based on the book by Daisaku Ikeda. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
Tokyo Drifter stands with Branded to Kill as one of the best-known and most acclaimed films of Seijun Suzuki, one of Japan's most talented maverick directors. A colorful riot of an action drama, Tokyo Drifter, like many of Suzuki's films, transforms a standard gangster film plot into a vehicle for his own loopy brand of filmmaking, featuring gorgeous cinematography, unconventional storytelling techniques, and a dark sense of humor. This particular example centers on Tetsu, a yakuza member who, when his gang is disbanded, remains loyal to his boss and attempts to go straight. This is no easy task, however, as the yakuza are determined to get him back into the life -- or kill him if he refuses. The pressure soon forces Tetsu to go on the road, becoming the "Tokyo drifter" of the title, but even this is not enough to prevent his past from violently catching up with him. The film's choreographed action and vibrant color palette make the frequent action sequences, including one of the most raucous barroom brawls ever put on film, seem almost like musical numbers, resulting in a spectacularly entertaining and truly original take on the gangster drama. ~ Judd Blaise, Rovi
- Starring:
- Tetsuya Watari, Tamio Kawachi, (more)
