Seijun Suzuki Movies
Seijun Suzuki's career falls into two distinct parts. From the late 1950s until 1967, he was a director of production-line genre flicks at Nikkatsu studios. While working in this seemingly hostile environment, Suzuki cranked out some of the most bizarre, nihilistic, and brilliant gangster films ever committed to celluloid. During the 1980s, Suzuki reinvented himself as a renowned art film director who received numerous awards and much critical praise. In both incarnations, Suzuki was considered one of the most important and influential voices in Japanese cinema.Born Seitaro Suzuki in Tokyo on May 24, 1923, he failed the entrance exam for the Ministry of Agriculture's college because of his weakness in science. Instead he attended a small college in northern Akita prefecture until he was called up for military service. He witnessed the war first-hand as a second-class private for the Navy, an experience that he found "comical." Upon returning to Japan, he enrolled in the film department of the Kamakura Academy and passed the entrance exam for Shochiku studios. There he worked as an assistant director under Noboru Nakamura, among others. In 1954, he transferred to Nikkatsu, the most sordid and sensational of Japan's four leading studios.
Nikkatsu's mainstays in the 1960s were either ultra-violent yakuza- (gangster) films or sado-masochistic soft-core sex films called pinku eiga. Suzuki soon proved himself adept at cranking out studio-scripted quickies, and he ultimately churned out some 40 films for Nikkatsu during the fifteen years he worked for them. Such early titles as The Nude and the Gun and High-teen Yakuza already exude the two-fisted flamboyance of his later, more developed works.
With his 1958 film Beauty of the Underworld, he first signed his name "Suzuki Seijun," and in 1963, bored with production-line genre material, he began to assert his own voice in Youth of the Beast. The film opens in black-and-white, then switches to color. A sandstorm appears suddenly, as a junkie prostitute is being whipped. A gay yakuza parks his pink limo beneath matching cherry blossoms. Beginning with this film, Suzuki increasingly emphasized the absurdities of the genre and the artifice of the medium.
Suzuki's extreme style eventually drew criticism from studio executives. In 1966, after repeated commands to tether his flamboyance, Suzuki created Tokyo Drifter in seeming defiance of the studio. The film is the yakuza genre reductio ad absurdum, held together with only the barest attention to logic or narrative coherence. Suzuki's pop-art aesthetics and loopy cinematic devices almost crowd out the plot. Yet miraculously, the film shocks, thrills, and entertains. His 1967 work Branded to Kill proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back. The film was so rococo, so gleefully nihilistic, so utterly bizarre that it prompted enraged studio officials to fire Suzuki. Today, Branded to Kill and Tokyo Drifter are considered Suzuki's masterpieces.
Suzuki was effectively blacklisted from filmmaking until 1977. During those ten years, the Japanese film industry began to decline and the formerly rigid studio system collapsed. In 1980, Suzuki, now without the constraints of Nikkatsu, released Zigeunerweisen, the first of his "Taisho Trilogy," a haunting, grotesque film about identity in the 1920s, when Japan first began to adopt Western culture. This film won a prize at the 1981 Berlin Film Festival and was voted the best Japanese film of the 1980s by Japanese critics. After completing Kagero-za and Yumeji, the last two chapters of the "Taisho Trilogy," Suzuki stopped shooting features, although he continues to shoot pieces for television. In 1988, the Edinburgh Film Festival presented the first Western retrospective of Suzuki's films. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
Veteran director Seijun Suzuki (Branded to Kill) takes a new direction with the colorful operetta-fairy tale, Princess Raccoon. When Azuchi Momoyama (Mikijiro Hira), the master of Grace Castle, is told by his soothsayer, Virgen the Old Maid (Saori Yuki) that his son, Amechiyo (Joe Odagiri), will soon usurp his place as "the fairest of them all," the king decides to banish the young man to Karasu Mountain, where the shape-shifting tanuki demons (raccoon-like canines native to Japan) live. Dropped at the mountain, Amechiyo is greeted by the beautiful Tanukihime (Zhang Ziyi), who speaks a strange language (Mandarin), and whom he soon learns is the ruler of Tanuki Palace. Amid colorful painted backdrops, lavish costumes, and eclectic musical numbers, the two fall into a forbidden and dangerous romance. After they frolic in the woods, Amechiyo is taken prisoner by tanuki, but Tanukihime's hand maidens, recognizing the princess' love for him, arrange for his escape. Azuchi is determined to end his son's life, however, and even Hagi (Hiroko Yakushimaru), Tanukihime's loyal henchwoman, is determined to separate the lovers, presumably to ensure the princess' safety. Princess Raccoon was shown at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival before having its North American Premiere at the 2005 New York Asian Film Festival, presented by Subway Cinema. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Zhang Ziyi, Jô Odagiri, (more)
Japanese cult director Seijun Suzuki's combination sequel to and remake of his 1967 gangster film classic Branded To Kill stars Makiko Esumi as Miyuki Minazuki, AKA "the Stray Cat," a beautiful female assassin. She is number three in the hierarchy of killers in her criminal organization at the beginning of the film, but soon a battle breaks out among the assassins, all of whom are trying to become the number one killer by murdering their competition. Miyuki finds herself fighting her fellow assassins one by one, encountering along the way such eccentrically-nicknamed opponents as The Teacher, who is confined to a wheelchair, Painless Surgeon, a bearded Westerner who literally feels no pain, and Dark Horse (Masatoshi Nagase), who wears a blond wig and has a perpetual case of the sniffles. Also making an appearance is Goro Hanada, the hero of Branded To Kill (played in the original by Jo Shishido, but here by Mikijiro Hira), who becomes a mentor to Miyuki, and is now known as number zero. The film's skeletal plot mostly allows director Suzuki to develop elaborate visual tableaus that stretch the possibilities of narrative cinema. ~ Tom Vick, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Makiko Esumi, Sayoko Yamaguchi, (more)
- 2002
From the Japanese cult-flick director known simply as Sabu, Koufuku No Kane (The Blessing Bell) follows Igarashi (Susumu Terajima) through the last 24 hours before the factory he works for closes down, leaving him unemployed. After a job hunt brings him no results, Igarishi ponders his fate at the banks of a local river. He isn't counting on an old man committing suicide right next to him, but that is precisely what happens. The problem gets further complicated when a policeman finds the body in the same vicinity as Igarishi, and sends him mistakenly off to jail. Rather than leaving Igarishi feeling even more persecuted, prison life gives the blue-collar young man a sense of purpose. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Susumu Terajima, Naomi Nishida, (more)
- 1995
- NR
All poor Atsushi Hirata really wants is to leave the cold Japanese winter and take a week's vacation in warm Hawaii. Unfortunately, he ends up forced to honor tradition and travel to even more frigid Iceland to pay tribute to his late parents who died there seven years before. This internationally produced very funny road movie chronicles his many misadventures that begin when he disembarks from his plane in the midst of a blizzard and ends up boarding the wrong bus. The bus takes him to some popular hot springs and he must take a taxi back to Reykjavik. He doesn't make it back, because the driver needed to stop in his hometown and participate in a nativity pageant. This forces poor Hirata to bum a ride on a truck. During the journey, he meets a broad assortment of eccentric and bizarre characters ranging from a woman with a thing about photographing funerals, an aspiring Bonnie and Clyde, and a band of Icelandic cowboys. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Masatoshi Nagase, Lili Taylor, (more)
The final film in his acclaimed Taisho trilogy, maverick filmmaker Seijun Suzuki directs his bizarre, hallucinatory tale about the tortured inner world of famed 1920s painter Yumeji Takehisa. The film opens with Takehisa (played by former rock star Kenji Sawada) at a garden party, entranced by a woman in a gloriously red kimono. He's utterly struck by her beauty and mystery, and also by the fact that she is standing on a tree branch and appears to have no face. At nights, he is plagued with dreams of dueling a faceless man in a frock. When his adversary is about to make his final lethal blow, Takehisa quickly wakes. Later, he ventures to scenic Kanazawa where he plans to meet his lover, Hikono (Masumi Miyazaki). Instead, he meets a recent widow named Tomoyo, whose husband, Wakiya (Yoshio Harada), was slain by a murderously jealous man named Onimatsu. Feeling his act of rage was justifiable considering he discovered Wakiya in bed with his wife, Onimatsu is more than a little distraught when his would-be murder victim comes back to life sporting a blonde wig. Wanting to finish the job, Onimatsu chases Wakiya, while Takehisa seduces Tomoyo. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kenji Sawara, Tomoko Mariya, (more)
- 1985
This animated Japanese film features the continuing adventures of Lupin, the thief and adventurer who was the hero of the classic animation The Castle of Cagliostro. Released in 1985, the influence of Raiders of the Lost Ark is apparent, as the story places Lupin III on the trail of a vast gold treasure of divine origins. However, the character of Lupin has appeared in Japanese comic books and cartoons since the late 1960s and is based on an early American matinee hero, Lone Wolf; thus, Lupin may in fact be seen as an older cousin or predecessor to Indiana Jones. ~ Jonathan E. Laxamana, All Movie Guide
- 1985
Acclaimed director Seijun Suzuki's first film for Shochuku Studios is a disappointing comedy of interest to completists only. Ken Hagiwara stars as a Japanese naniwa-bushi singer who travels to the United States with his wife, dreaming of fame and fortune. What might have played as an interesting culture-clash comedy is instead a slapdash affair with little creativity or genuine humor. Yuko Tanaka and Kenji Sawada fail to improve matters any.
~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
The inner workings of the human psyche are featured in this study of relationships between different leading characters. The action weaves around playwright Matsuzaki (Yusaku Matsuda) -- who is sleeping with Shinako (Michio Okusu), a married woman -- and his other "lover," Ine (Eriko Kasuda), a fairly corporeal spirit. The film is set in 1926, when cinema was silent -- and that era is evoked in Kagero-za. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yusaku Matsuda, Mariko Kaga, (more)
This is an enigmatic and challenging film in many ways. It is set in the 1930s and colored with nuances of the strange and sinister, one component of the Nazis' "world view" at that time. Japan's connections to Germany during this period leading up to World War II are brought forward in the German title, the name of a song by Pablo Sarasate that is a part of the story. This tale features the relationship between a Japanese professor of German and Nakasago (Yoshio Harada), a former friend he runs into while on vacation. Nakasago has been charged with murdering a married woman who ran away with him. As the two former friends become more and more involved, the professor begins to get a glimpse of Nakasago's odd life, and undertones of witchcraft provide an eerie overlay to the fate of the missing woman. Cerebral and intriguing, the film seems to take place on several levels at once. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yoshio Harada, Naoko Otani, (more)
A young model discovers the dark side of fame in this grim tale fom cult film director Seijun Suzuki (Tokyo Drifter). When the lovely Reiko (Yoko Shiraki) begins posing for a golfing fashion magazine, her sexy, unique look --a skimpy bathing suit and a nine iron -- draws tons of attention from new fans. Soon enough, one of these devoted followers develops an obsession with Reiko, and begins to blackmail and threaten her. ~ All Movie Guide
A delirious fever dream of a film, Seijun Suzuki's Branded to Kill takes the familiar elements of "B"-movie crime drama and transforms them into something outrageously bizarre and unexpectedly poetic. The film's story centers on Hanada, a.k.a. "No. 3 Killer," the third-best hit man in Japanese organized crime. Near the top of his game, his fortunes change when he encounters Misako, a mysterious, death-obsessed woman who brings him a particularly difficult mission. In a famous moment indicative of the film's eccentric sensibility, a butterfly lands on his gun's sight at the exact moment he pulls the trigger, causing him to miss the shot. This failure means that the killer becomes the target, and must run for his life from his former employers, and the mysterious "No. 1 Killer." While the film does contain some spectacular action sequences, the story is played less as a suspense thriller than as a surrealistic, psychosexual nightmare, filled with grotesque imagery and strange touches, such as Misako's use of a dead bird's corpse as a rear-view mirror decoration, and his almost fetishistic fixation with the smell of boiling rice. Indeed, the narrative is at times so fragmented that it is often difficult to decipher exactly what is happening; however, the striking black-and-white cinematography and avant-garde editing provide the film with a dream logic all its own. Now considered by many critics a maverick classic comparable to the works of Samuel Fuller or Jean-Luc Godard, the film was less well received at the time of its original release, with its utter strangeness leading to director Suzuki's firing from the Nikkatsu studio and the near destruction of his career. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jo Shishido, Mariko Ogawa, (more)
- 1966
An interesting variant on Bizet's Carmen from acclaimed director Seijun Suzuki, this experimental film tells of young Karumen (Yumiko Nogawa), who leaves home after being gang-raped by thugs from school. She goes to Osaka, where men fall at her feet when she becomes a nightclub singer. The film is shot variously in black-and-white, red-and-white, blue-and-white, etc., depending on the scene. With some filmmakers, this technique would become annoying fairly quickly, but Suzuki uses the colors to accentuate the story rather than for visual effect alone.
~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yumiko Nogawa
In this sharp satire from acclaimed Japanese director Seijun Suzuki, Hideki Takahashi plays Kiroku, a middle-school student who finds himself troubled by an obsessive lust for the virginal Michiko (Junko Asano), the daughter of the family with whom he boards. But Kiroku soon discovers the perfect solution to thoughts of sex -- violence. One of Kiroku's schoolmates coaches him in the manly art of self-defense, and soon he joins a gang, eagerly fighting whenever the opportunity presents itself. Michiko is troubled by Kiroku's sudden embrace of his brutal side and tries to teach him to appreciate the more gentle side of life -- which, of course, doesn't help him at all. Soon, Kiroku is thrown out of school for making trouble and is sent off to live with his uncle, where preponderance and small-town machismo allow Kiroku to find all the violence he could hope for. The Fighting Elegy's screenplay was written by Kaneto Shindo, a noted leftist filmmaker who also served as an assistant director to Kenji Mizoguchi. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hideki Takahashi, Junko Asano, (more)
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, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tetsuya Watari, Tamio Kawachi, (more)
In Japan, the gangsters wear tattoos. A lot of tattoos. In fact, without their clothes, it almost looks as if they are wearing a particularly tight-fitting, gaudy ensemble. When two brothers who want to quit the gangster life go to work in a mine, they are harassed by the other miners because their tattoos identify them as gangsters. When the younger brother is killed, the older one must avenge him. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
Seijun Suzuki directed this hard-hitting account of a woman who volunteers to serve as a "comfort woman" (prostitute to the Japanese army) at the Manchurian front in 1937. Harumi (Yukimo Nogawa) is desperate to get out of Japan to escape the memory of a doomed romance. She offers to serve the Army in Manchuria, where the sadistic Lieutenant Narita (Isao Tamagawa) uses her violently and wants her as his private servant. However, Harumi has become infatuated with Mikami (Tamio Kawachi), Narita's subordinate, and they embark on an affair that would mean certain punishment for both of them if it were ever to be discovered. Diary Of A Prostitute was based on a novel by Taijiro Tamura, which was previously filmed (in bowdlerized form) in 1950 as Escape At Dawn. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1964
Famed Japanese director Seijun Suzuki made this stylish low-budget gangster film about two brothers (Akira Kobayashi, Hideki Takahashi) who take on the Yakuza, seeking revenge for a murdered girl. It's a rather good-looking film, thanks to the visual effects by Suzuki's frequent collaborator Itsuo Kimura, which makes up for its by-the-numbers plot. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
Gate of Flesh is one of the earliest examples of the sado-masochistic soft-core sex films called pinku eiga that would grow by the 1970s into one of Japan's largest, and domestically most popular, genres. Seijun Suzuki directed this gritty, stridently anti-American account of prostitution, set in the black markets and rubble of Tokyo during the immediate postwar era. The story focuses on Maya (Yumiko Nogawa), who finds refuge with a band of hookers living in a bombed-out building who fight for their turf and adhere to a strict, pitiless code: no sex without payment. Those women who run afoul of this rule endure an appalling punishment, largely at the hands of the sadistic ringleader of the group, Komasa Sen (Satoko Kasai). Tension within the group increases when macho ex-soldier Ibuki (Joe Shishido) hides in the women's basement from the US military police after he stabs an American soldier. Drunk on wood alcohol, Maya finds that she can no longer contain her yearning for the renegade hunk, resulting in trouble for both of them. The film lurches from a social realist portrayal of the hardships of the post-war slums to a lurid dreamscape of sexual desire perverted into brutality, realized by Suzuki's boldly expressionistic use of color, camerawork, and design. The result is a film as thrilling as it is repellant. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jo Shishido, Satoko Kasai, (more)
- 1964
Seijun Suzuki directed this great-looking adventure set in early 1900s Tokyo. Akira Kobayashi stars as a coal-miner who leads a rebellion against a nasty tyrant. Tamio Kawaji stands out in a flamboyantly villainous turn in a cast including Chieko Matsubara and Osamu Takizawa. The impressive set design by Itsuo Kimura and above-average production values make this one of the more enjoyable films to come out of Nikkatsu Studios at the time, even if Suzuki's normally distinctive style seems somewhat muted by the traditional storyline.
~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
Youth of the Beast marked a turning point in director Seijun Suzuki's career. No longer content to just crank out production-line gangster films, here Suzuki starts to assert his own voice. The plot is fairly typical for the genre: chipmunk-cheeked Jo Shishido stars as ex-cop Jo Mizuno, who muscles his way into the shadowy world of the yakuza. He gets hired by the clan that killed his former partner while double-dealing with the clan's rival. Yet the plot contains some particularly Suzuki-like details. Why is Jo's partner more interested in guns than in women? Why does Hide, the notorious gay gangster, always slash the face of anyone who mentions his mother? What does this all have to do with the Takeshita School of Knitting? Suzuki's audacious style heightens the absurdity and artifice of both the genre and the medium with pop-art colors, loopy camera placements, and bizarre, dream-like images: A feather-clad dancer silently struts behind sound-proofed two-way mirrors, a pink dust storm serendipitously occurs while a pimp whips a junkie prostitute. The film is a dizzying visual feast whose tone Seijun Suzuki would amplify to the most absurd heights in his later films, Tokyo Drifter (1966) and Branded to Kill (1967). ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jo Shishido
- 1963
Japanese director Seijun Suzuki solidified his growing cult following with this offbeat adaptation of Haruhiko Ooyabu's crime novel. Jo Shishido stars as Det. Tajima, a smug investigator who nabs a pair of criminal gangs with flamboyant aplomb while the police remain baffled. Suzuki treats the rather hoary plotline as an excuse for dark-humored camp, and young audiences were delighted with his irreverent approach, which made him one of the few distinctive names in the '60s assembly-line of Nikkatsu Studios.
~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
Japanese auteur Seijin Suzuki directs yakuza icon Akira Kobayashi in this typically stylish tale of a feared bodyguard caught in the middle of a deadly battle between two powerful crime bosses. Katsuta (Kobayashi) works for Izu, and when overly-ambitious rival boss Yoshida makes a desperate power play, Katsuta is obligated by oath and honor to defend his boss to the death. Though his mission is clear, the sudden appearance of a seductive femme fatale from Katsuda's past finds his lust threatening to overtake his loyalty. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- 1963
Another of Seijun Suzuki's early works in which it is hard to see any promise (he directed 27 films before Kanto Mushuki made his name), this standard juvenile-crime movie is nonetheless important historically. It was the director's first collaboration with Itsuo Kimura, the art director whose vision would inform most of Suzuki's later masterpieces, although very little of that vision is obvious here. Ken Yamauchi toplines as Togo, a boy whose constant fighting gets him in trouble. Masako Isumi co-stars.
~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
