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Reviews
Autoreiji (2010)
Violent auto-gratification with twist of black humor
Sanno-Kai is a powerful yakuza organization with a hierarchical structure of several mutually subordinate clans. Head of Organization, Sekiuchi (Soichiro Kitamura), is dissatisfied with the closeness of his assistant chief Ikemoto (Jun Kunimura) with rival clan of Murase (Renji Ishibashi). Since Ikemoto's clan made a brotherly agreement with Murase's clan, he engages Otomo (Takeshi Kitano) to create a conflict that will eliminate doubts of Sekuichi. Otomo is the head of the family subordinated to Ikemoto, but delegated task to rough Murase gang members up a bit takes over-zealously. This act will ignite bloody spiral of inevitable revenge, sadistic violence and dirty power struggle between the clans, with the head of the organization in the heart of the conflict...
The versatile Japanese director Takeshi Kitano has built a worldwide reputation in the nineties recording impressive auteur films about the yakuzas. After he shot the film Brother (2000), he left the genre inspired by the Japanese underworld, and devoted himself to film work on a series of art-drama, exploring the theme of intimate and spiritual significance. With movie Outrage (Autoreiji, 2010) he has closed the full circle of different genre preoccupations and returned to the territory of yakuza clan films. But loyal Kitano audience is likely to be disappointed by the realization of the director's return to the genre: the title of the new film is also its program. Outrage is reduced to the naked and brutal retaliatory clashes and struggle for power and the corresponding territory.
Recognizable stylistic origins of earlier Kitano's genre works are in Outrage almost entirely abandoned. In this movie we do not come across the hardened criminals with a humanistic line, ready to dispose of weapons and far away from everyday underground enjoy relaxation in the infantile pastime. World of meditative yakuza characters filled with elegiac lyric is replaced in Outrage with world of one-dimensional techno-gangsters filled with blood of unstoppable brutality. Slow poetics of existential doubt is substituted with the stereotypical characteristic of gangster genre - ruthless struggle for power and money.
The narrative of Outrage is told through the tangled web of secret treaties, broken promises, betrayed loyalties, conspiratorial intrigue, fierce revenge and blatant treason, and is constantly escalating in brutal skirmishes. Compliance with the order and hierarchy is nothing but a mere illusion, practice of cutting fingers has lost the value of ritual apology and the only thing left is the cyclical violence in which each execution surpasses the previous. Moreover, the motif of constant violence is repeated until it reaches the final boundaries of the absurd. In an effort that the routine of execution do not become boringly monotone, movie visual aesthetic of violence is presented in an extremely juicy graphics and the borders of creativity are examined in the methods of many executions. Painful cries resound from the use of handguns, crowbars, scalpels, dental drills and innovative combination of rope and luxury sedan. The only element that saves the movie from its classification in the exploitation genre is the intelligent use of black humor, to the extent that the movie is at times transformed into a comic farce, and even unintentional slapstick, especially when the character of African diplomat is in the focus.
Takeshi Kitano has returned to the genre of yakuza movies after ten years but without any artistic pretensions. Outrage is a dynamic movie showing successive executions sometimes garnished with black humor, which can provide greater commercial success, but also bring disappointment to many of director fans. New Kitano movie is one-adrenaline entertainment and nothing more, unfortunately.
Han-ochi (2004)
Complexed drama on difficult moral choices...
In this emotionally tormenting drama we slowly discover reasons behind the main character actions but also follow the behavior of all other sides involved in the story (police, prosecutor, media, defense layer, judge, victim's sister) with accent on their own moral doubts, their integrity, courage and fears. In that sense director is trying to present the truth as puzzle where understanding every piece is necessary to comprehend it and because of complexity of problem that story analysis it becomes difficult to maneuver with every aspect at the same level.
Pace of the movie is slow, like director is giving us time to think about moral choice every character makes. And actors are overall great in presenting psychological torments they characters are experiencing. In the end their is no final answer concerning the choice around movie evolves, only that what we decide and try to live with it.