Cult Movie Challenge 2018 | 46/52 | Film Noir
Hanada, number three hitman for the underworld, and his wife, Mami, fly into Haneda Airport in Tokyo, where Kasuga picks them up. Kasuga lost his position as a hitman and wants Hanada’s help to do something big so he can return. They go to a club, where Hanada orders rice, boiled — the smell arouses him. They meet with Yakuza boss Michihiko Yabuhara, who offers them an escort job from Sagami Beach to Nagano for 5 million yen.
They arrive at the car, finding a dead man in the back seat. They discuss who could’ve done the hit — number two, Sakura, number four, Ko, or perhaps the mysterious number 1 killer? The men drop the body off at the marina, then pick up the client, who arrives in scuba gear. A car soon follows. The men prepare for the ambush, colliding their vehicle with the ambushers. Hanada jumps out and starts taking out men, calling for Kasuga to protect the client. Kaneda, drunk and panicking, shoots at the number 4 hitman, Ko, foaming at the mouth. They both kill each other.
Hanada and the client prepare to run into number two Sakura, as Sakura and Ko often worked together. Hanada runs off to get Ko’s car, but hears three shots. He runs back to see three men shot squarely in the head, and the client unharmed. They take Ko’s car into another ambush. Hanada grabs a canister of gasoline, running towards Sakura’s position. He manages to get the canister in the building and shoots it, setting Sakura on fire. Sakura races towards the car, and the client finishes him off.
Hanada drops the client off at the specified location. While driving back in the rain, the car breaks down. A car stops to give him a ride — a convertible with the top down in the pouring rain. The driver? A woman named Misako, whose dream is to die. A dead bird hangs from her rearview mirror. A lighter falls out of her pocket. Smash cut to Hanada at home, smelling a rice cooker before following his wife upstairs to fuck her.
Who was that client? Who is Misako? What jobs will Hanada do next? What the hell is going on in this movie?
I want to be on the drugs they were on when they made this movie. The id-driven, expressionist noir is quite singular in its blend of absurdist humor and visual flair. Yeah, there’s kind of a story, but this is pure vibe cinema, baby. Probably another Nolan influence he’ll refuse to cite.
Stray Thoughts / Spoilers
- Joe Shishido’s surgically enlarged chipmunk cheeks are uncanny. He’s like the Japanese Robert Z’Dar.
- The rice fetish just came to director Seijun Suzuki as a way to make Hanada a “quintessentially Japanese killer.”
- Suzuki also hated storyboarding and pre-planning, which is probably why this movie is all over the place.
- The camera work is truly outrageous. At times, artsy-fartsy compositions, at others, kinetic, freewheeling madness.
- Dude, how are there not dead stunt men from this? That guy definitely fell off the roof of that multi-story building.
- The backdrops for the driving scenes are so blurry.
- The reveal of Misako is maybe my all-time favorite introduction of a femme fatale.
- The sex scene goes on for so long! They stop mid-way so that Hanada can huff more boiling rice and Mami can eat some bread.
- I think Mami is nude for most of her screentime.
- Misako’s apartment is littered with dead butterflies — pinned to the walls, carpeting the couch, piled on the floor.
- Animated butterflies!
- A character sings along to the score! That’s one of my favorite tropes.
- The absurdity is getting a little tedious in the last quarter. But the ending works for me.