Suzuki, Seijun

Underworld Beauty

Tokyo Drifter (Criterion Collection Spine #39)

Seijun Suzuki transforms the yakuza genre into a pop-art James Bond cartoon as directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The near-incomprehensible plot is almost negligible: hitman "Phoenix" Tetsu (Tetsuya Watari), a cool killer in dark shades who whistles his own theme song, discovers his own mob has betrayed his code of ethics and hits the road like a questing warrior, with not one but two mobs hot on his trail. In a world of shifting loyalties Tetsu is the last honorable man, a character who might have stepped out of a Jean-Pierre Melville film and into a delirious, color-soaked landscape of a Vincent Minnelli musical turned gangster war zone. The twisting narrative takes Tetsu from deliriously gaudy nightclubs, where killers hide behind every pillar, to the beautiful snowy plains of Northern Japan and back again, leaving a trail of corpses in his wake. Suzuki opens the widescreen production in stark, high-contrast black and white with isolated eruptions of color that finally explode in a screen that glows in oversaturated hues, like a comic book come to life. His extreme stylization, jarring narrative leaps, and wild plot devices combine to create a pulp fiction on acid, equal parts gangster parody and post-modern deconstruction. Andrew Sarris described Sam Fuller's films as works that "have to be seen to be understood," a characterization that applies even more in this case. Mere description cannot capture the visceral effect of Suzuki's surreal cinematic fireworks. --Sean Axmaker

In this free-jazz gangster film, reformed killer "Phoenix" Tetsu drifts around Japan, awaiting his own execution until he's called back to Tokyo to help battle a rival gang. Seijun Suzuki's "barrage of aestheticised violence, visual gags, [and] mind-warping color effects" got him in more trouble with Nikkatsu studio heads, who had ordered him to "play it straight this time." Instead he gave them equal parts Russ Meyer, Samuel Fuller, and Nagisa Oshima. Criterion presents the DVD premiere of Tokyo Drifter in a lush color transfer from the original, glorious Nikkatsu-scope master.

Fighting Elegy - Criterion Collection

High schooler Nanbu Kiroku yearns for the prim, Catholic Michiko, but her only desire is to reform Kiroku's sinful tendencies. Hormones raging, Kiroku channels his unsatisfied lust into the only outlet available: savage crazed violence. Fighting Elegy is a unique masterpiece in the diverse career of Seijun Suzuki, combining the director's signature bravura visual style with a brilliantly focused satire of machismo and fascism.

Tattooed Life

Branded to Kill (Criterion Collection Spine #38)

Seijun Suzuki's absolutely mad yakuza movie bends the hit-man genre so out of shape it more resembles a Luis Bunuel take on Martin Scorsese. Number three killer Goro Hanada (Jo Shishido) is a hired killer who loves his work, but when he misses a target after a mere butterfly sets his carefully balanced aim astray, he becomes the next target of the mob. Goro is no pushover and easily dispatches the first comers, leaving them splayed in death contortions that could qualify for an Olympic event, but the rat-a-tat violence gives way to a surreal, sadistic game of cat and mouse. The legendary Number One mercilessly taunts his target before moving in with him in a macho, testosterone-laden Odd Couple truce that ends up with them handcuffed together. Kinky? Not compared to earlier scenes. The smell of boiling rice sets Goro's libido for his mistress so aflame that Suzuki censors the gymnastic sex with animated black bars that come to life in an animated cha-cha. Because Suzuki pushed his yakuza parodies and cinematic surrealism too far, his studio, Nikkatsu, finally called in their own metaphoric hit and fired the director with such force that he was effectively blackballed from the industry for a decade. It took about that long for audiences to embrace his audacious genre bending--Suzuki's pop-art sensibilities were just a bit ahead of their time. --Sean Axmaker

Branded to Kill, the wildly perverse story of the yakuza's rice-sniffing "No. 3 Killer," is Seijun Suzuki at his delirious best. From a cookie-cutter studio script, Suzuki delivered this brutal, hilarious, and visually inspired masterpiece-and was promptly fired. Criterion presents the DVD premiere of Branded to Kill in a pristine transfer from the original Nikkatsu-scope master.

Youth of the Beast - Criterion Collection

Seijun Suzuki's delirious take on pulp-gangster films blows the lid off the genre with mad energy and stylistic excess, twisting a cliché-riddled revenge plot lifted from Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (which also inspired Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars) into a wild yakuza explosion. The somber black-and-white opening with a single color element--a pink flower lying on the floor--explodes into bright color, blaring music, and random violence. Chipmunk-cheeked Suzuki regular Jo Shishido hides behind dark glasses as the brutal thug Jo, who auditions for the Nomota mob boss by beating up underlings in his own nightclub (we watch the spectacle from behind soundproof glass while a go-go dancer shimmies in the foreground). Quickly establishing himself as the outfit's most ruthless debt collector and enforcer, he visits a rival gang (headquartered in a loft overlooking a movie house) and before long is playing the two against one another. The tangled plot also involves the Nomota honcho's gay brother, a scheme against his sixth wife, and the mysterious Takeshita School of Knitting, all set at a barreling pace and spiced with jagged narrative leaps, avant-garde riffs, and glowing colorscapes that would make Douglas Sirk jealous. In one bizarre scene, a raging wind whips an amber-hued desert into a surreal dust storm just outside the picture window of the Nomota boss's living room window as he blithely flogs his mistress. Suzuki's cinematic madness finds its culmination in Branded to Kill and Tokyo Drifter. --Sean Axmaker

When a mysterious stranger muscles into two rival yakuza gangs, Tokyo's underworld explodes with violence. Youth of the Beast was a breakthrough for director Seijun Suzuki, introducing the flamboyant colors, hallucinatory images, and striking compositions that would become his trademark. The Criterion Collection proudly presents the film that revitalized the yakuza genre and helped define the inimitable style of a legendary cinematic renegade.

Seijun Suzuki's The Taisho Trilogy (Zigeunerweisen / Kagero-za / Yumeji)

Princess Raccoon

To lovers of romance, there is nothing unusual in the story of how Amechiyo, an exiled prince, meets the exotic and mysterious girl, Tanuki, in the forest and becomes smitten with her beauty. However, when he discovers she is actually the Princess Raccoon, "usual" takes a holiday, as the unlikely pair fall in love, despite everyone's warnings. When tragedy strikes after the celebration of the Princess's un-birthday, only true love can save her!
Legendary director Seijun Suzuki?s 50-year career reaches a milestone with this surreal musical comedy about love, deception and soda-water rain. Stirring up a broth of Kabuki, opera, animation, and adding dashes of pop culture, theater staging and rap music, Princess Raccoon is an eclectic masterpiece. Starring Zhang Ziyi ("Memoirs of a Geisha", "House of Flying Daggers") in the title role, this enchanting movie celebrates the sheer joy of love and film.

Gate of Flesh - Criterion Collection

Gate of Flesh (Nikutai no mon) is another wonderful example of why Seijun Suzuki will go down in history as one of Japan's craftiest and most ingenious B-movie directors. As exhibited in Branded to Kill and Tokyo Drifter Suzuki has the uncanny ability to take shoestring budgets, predictable boilerplate scripts, tight schedules, and studio-contracted actors and spin these elements to create extremely deep and layered films. Gate of Flesh is no exception. In post-World War II Japan, life on the Tokyo streets has become desperate. Amidst the ruins, a tough, well-worn group of prostitutes bands together for survival and companionship. When an ex-soldier enters into the circle, flames of jealousy, anger, and lust are fueled, ending with disastrous results. On the surface, the story is a simple pulp tale of decadence thrown together by Nikkatsu Studios to make a quick buck. But, in the hands of Suzuki-san, Gate of Fleshturns into a hallucinatory, surreal, critical post-modern essay on the decline of loyalty and morality in modern society. --Rob Bracco

In the shady black markets and bombed-out hovels of post-World War II Tokyo, a tough band of prostitutes eke out a dog-eat-dog existence, maintaining tenuous friendships and a semblance of order in a world of chaos. But when a renegade ex-soldier stumbles into their midst, lusts and loyalties clash, with tragic results. With Gate of Flesh, visionary director Seijun Suzuki delivers a whirlwind of social critique and pulp drama shot through with brilliant colors and raw emotions.

Story of a Prostitute (Criterion Collection)

Best known for his pop-art gangster epics like Tokyo Drifter and Pistol Opera, Japanese director Seijun Suzuki previously applied his startling camera angles, jolting editing, and hypnotic compositions to this military melodrama. Harumi (Yumiko Nogawa, who also starred in Suzuki's Gate of Flesh) is a ferociously independent prostitute who becomes a "comfort woman" for soldiers at the front of the Japan-China war in 1937. A brutal officer named Narita (Isao Tamagawa, later to appear in Suzuki's Branded to Kill) claims her for his use, but she falls in love with his passive, conflicted orderly Mikami (Tamio Kawaji, who also acted in Suzuki's Youth of the Beast--clearly, Suzuki liked his stars!). In this world, love is a few moments of ecstasy in an ocean of torment, and Suzuki cranks up both: During sex, Harumi curls her full, sensual lips into a violent grimace of pleasure; when Mikami kicks her away in his early attempts to resist her, Harumi's convulsions go into slow-motion while her crazed shrieks reverberate at regular speed on the soundtrack, lifting her agony to mythological heights. You know their affair will end badly, but Suzuki's feverish pitch compels you all the way down, and his emotional commitment gives Story of a Prostitute a very different feel from his more aloof and experimental gangster movies. The extras for this Criterion disk are few, but interviews with Suzuki, his production designer Takeo Kimura, and film critic Tadao Sato provide some valuable historical context and insight into Suzuki's directorial methods. --Bret Fetzer

Volunteering as a "comfort woman" on the Manchurian front, where she is expected to service hundreds of soldiers, Harumi (Yumiko Nogawa) is commandeered by the brutal Lieutenant Narita (Isao Tamagawa) but falls for the sensitive Mikami (Tamio Kawachi), Narita's direct subordinate. In this tragic love story, director Seijun Suzuki delivers a rule-bending take on the popular Taijiro Tamura novel, challenging military and fraternal codes of honor, as seen through Harumi's eyes.