Asian Cinema Challenge 2023 | 33/52 | Yakuza Films
A group of reporters gathers at the Nishi and Iwabuchi wedding party, forcing their way past the staff to ask about the Dairyu Construction executives. The bride, Yoshiko Iwabuchi, walks down the aisle with a limp, as one leg is longer than the other. Her parents follow behind her, including her father, the Vice President Iwabuchi of the Public Corporation for Land Development. The Public Corp. president, Arimura, introduced Yoshiko to Vice President Iwabuchi’s secretary, Koichi Nishi. Nishi only became secretary after the engagement. The reporters believe Koichi is only marrying Yoshiko to get ahead, as he has known parents and, therefore, no known wealth.
A police detective enters, drawing the reporters’ attention to him as he questions which exec or vice president he intends to arrest next. They are shocked to see Wada, the assistant chief of contracts, arrested. The reporters realize that the police aren’t just handling embezzlement at Dairy Construction—they are dealing with a kickback scheme between Dairyu and Public Corp. They conclude that something is going on between Iwabuchi, admin officer Moriyama, and contract officer Shirai. And it may have something to do with the supposed suicide of Assistant Chief Furuya, which brought an investigation of the three to a halt.
Guests give speeches that sound more like pleas for innocence in court. The wedding cake rolls out, followed by another cake in the shape of the ministry building. On the seventh floor of the cake replica is a rose — the same window from which Assistant Chief Furuya jumped to his death. The cake horrifies the three men in charge of the cover-up. To them, the cake is a warning. How deep does this bribery scheme go? Who sent the cake?
— This is the best one-act I've seen.
— One act? This is just the prelude.
Wow, everyone is in this one! Toshiro Mifune, Ken Mitsuda, Takashi Shimura, Chishū Ryū, Kyōko Kagawa. This is Mifune at his most Clark Kent.
The film is a loose take on Hamlet wrapped in a corporate espionage thriller. Unlike Ran and other Kurosawa Shakespeare adaptations, this film takes only the structure and applies it to contemporary corporate politics. We follow the wedding as people try to shake out who is behind the cake and more. We reach a point early on where this can end one of two ways: the secret person takes down a central corporate power structure, or they don’t.
It’s not as though we are 100% behind the person, either. They perform their own deceitful and cruel actions, feeling justified in their means. Even as those working alongside him feel the weight of guilt, the secret person is blind to everything except revenge. The film calls into question individual heroics against faceless corporations.
It's not easy hating evil. You have to stoke your own fury until you become evil yourself. […] It's pointless to try to use the law against evil people.
The movie expertly doles out a ton of information about the circumstances and people involved — even with my massive paragraphs, I omitted some elements. The first act, in particular, was a significant inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola in crafting his wedding scene in The Godfather.
That’s not to say the movie rushes in any way. On the contrary, once the film brings us up to speed, we get to watch each chess move play out, and its consequences unfold. And those consequences, in their final moments, are what divide audiences on the film.
They tamed […] you with scraps from their table and offered you up as scapegoats, yet you can't hate them. […] Even now, they sleep soundly, grins on their faces.
I would say for me, it’s less the event than the way the movie chooses to convey them that weakens the film’s intent. Also, there comes a point in the movie where it slows down a bit too much for my taste, as we have meditations from assorted characters that feel like they only delay the inevitable. Kurosawa has portrayed these types of meditations much better elsewhere.
Maybe this film didn’t pave the way for the neo-noir resurgence of the 70s, but it surely precipitated it by a decade. Kurosawa saw the writing on the wall when it came to corporations ruining lives, and the desperate acts of small men to change the tide. Perhaps he saw himself as one of those small men while making this film.
I want those villains brought to justice for the sake of all the helpless people who don't even know they've been had.
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