"Branded to Kill" is a stylish, inventive and thoroughly modern piece of '60s Japanese noir, at turns sexy and psychologicaly creepy. It's also one of the most influential Japanese films ever made. Released in 1967 and directed by Seijun Suzuki, "Branded to Kill" ("Koroshi no Rakuin" in Japanese) is the story of a yakuza hitman and his battle to stay alive after he botches a job and finds himself in the cross hairs of another hitman's rifle.

"Branded to Kill" is a stylish, inventive and thoroughly modern piece of '60s Japanese noir, at turns sexy and psychologicaly creepy. It's also one of the most influential Japanese films ever made.

Released in 1967 and directed by Seijun Suzuki, "Branded to Kill" ("Koroshi no Rakuin" in Japanese) is the story of a yakuza hitman and his battle to stay alive after he botches a job and finds himself in the cross hairs of another hitman's rifle.

Jo Shishido stars as "No. 3 Killer." After he misses hitting his assigned target (a butterfly lands on his rifle, blocking his telescope), the mysterious and higher-ranking "No. 1 Killer" is sent to rub him out.

Meanwhile, the even more mysterious client who ordered the failed assassination attempt, a woman named Misako (played by Annu Mari), becomes the object of No. 3's obsessive and unrequited love.

With what is one of the most memorable character traits imagineable, No. 3 is a hitman with a peculiar fetish--he is aroused and comforted by the smell of boiled rice. The quirk is a symbolic cultural touch to Suzuki's film, as rice is a staple of almost every Japanese meal. The underlying pathology of the bizarre fetish is never explained, but it not only puts a Japanese stamp on the movie, it adds another droll layer.

Elements of the film's script and style are similar to that of French new wave of Jean-Luc Godard. Suzuki's aesthetic in "Branded" most closely echoes the noir of Godard's "Alphaville." There's also a subtle sense of humor to the film in the way it mocks and hyper-emphasizes the sillier conventions of the B-movie gangster genre. The film's comic touches has the kind of detached spy-versus-spy humor found in certain episodes of '60s British cult television series "The Prisoner" (as does its use of agents with numbers for names).

Testament to "Branded"'s influence can be seen most recently in the Jim Jarmusch film "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai," a modern hip-hop-mafia take on gang loyalty and honor. Jarmusch pays homage to Suzuki by copying a clever scene in which the hitman kills his target by shooting his gun through the plumbing connected to a sink. When the mark goes to the sink to wash up, No. 3 fires into the water pipe and cuts his victim down.

It's worth noting that Seijun Suzuki is a director whose best films have been more widely celebrated decades after they were made than at the time of theatrical release. "Branded to Kill" marked his last major film as an in-house director at Nikkatsu movie studios, as well as the end of his prime as a filmmaker.

With nearly fifty films to his credit, the once obscure Suzuki has now been aknowledged as an exceptionally innovative filmmaker, especially in the West. Though he has directed and acted in a handful of films during the past three decades, his greatest cinematic achievement is the modern yakuza pulp flick of the 1960s.

What makes "Branded" and other Suzuki films from the era so remarkable was that they were produced as B-movies with limited resources and under a factory-like studio production system that rolled out celluloid schlock the same way Toyota rolls out compact cars. When Suzuki turned in "Branded to Kill," he was fired from Nikkatsu for making a film deemed too confusing for audiences.

But Suzuki wasn't trying so much to cut an artistic path as much as create compelling and original pulp fiction within the constraints of an exhausted film genre. On films such as "Branded" and "Tokyo Drifter"," Suzuki invariably was assigned film projects and told which scripts and actors he'd have to use. It's amazing that "Branded to Kill" could be made under such conditions. But in Suzuki's hands, an otherwise pedestrian production was turned into a film with a refreshingly modern twist bordering on the avant-garde.

On the new DVD by Criterion there's an interview with an elderly, white-haired Suzuki. (Suzuki is now in his eighties.) Despite his advanced age, the director is spry, lucid and engaging as he gives a first-hand backgrounder on his filmmaking years and the making of "Branded to Kill." It's must-see viewing for cineastes.
-- Jay Han + Ivan Corsa

RELATED LINKS

Biography: Seijun Suzuki [MSN Entertainment]

Reviews - "Tokyo Drifter" and "Branded to Kill" [Deep Focus]

Seijun Suzuki Filmography [New York Times]

Branded to Kill Review [All Movie Guide / NY Times]

Essay - Branded to Kill by John Zorn

Interview - Suzuki Seijun [Midnight Eye]

Essay - Seijun Suzuki: Authority in the Minority by Stephen Teo

Seijun Suzuki Fan Web Site

Jo Shisido Fan Web Site

Official Nikkatsu Motion Picture Company Web Site

Finding a good Japanese film to take home on video isn't always the easiest thing to do. Most video stores have poorly stocked foreign film sections, let alone enough Japanese titles to warrant a label and a shelf. Sure, every shop carries the requisite couple of Akira Kurosawa films, usually the "Seven Samurai" and "Rashomon," and maybe there are a few anime titles (invariably mis-stocked as a "cartoons" in the children's section) and maybe there's that one Juzo Itami flick from the '80s, "Tampopo."

And that's it.

Selection is not only a result of a particular store, but also geography. If you're in The BIG Big City, your situation looks better. Even a big chain like Tower Video often has a decent foreign movie section.

For a better variety, there are those godsend places where film students hang out, dank crowded retail dens where the staff throw attitude and flaunt knowledge of celluloid arcana. Think Quentin Tarantino before he sold "True Romance." (or for that matter, after--Factoid: Tarantino used to work in an L.A. video store before selling his first script.)

In New York, we're talking about a place like Kim's Video (and Mondo Kim's in particular on St. Marks Place in the East Village) where you will find the best collection of home videos and DVDs for sale or rent in all of New York, if not the East Coast.

In Los Angeles there's a place called Cinefile that's probably the best video store in the entire Western Hemisphere, maybe even the world. (Ed. Okay, let the Best Video Store War begin! Drop us a line if you know of a place better than Cinefile or Kim's.)

Then there are those boutique places the size of a janitor's closet that reallyspecialize. These shops are so small you wonder how they can turnaround enough sales volume to make rent. Case in point, Cinema Nolita, a tiny tiny video store on Elizabeth St. in Lower Manhattan. There you will discover a stealthy collection of foreign, independent and otherwise critically important videos and DVDS, neatly arranged by genre, director, and country. Simply put, this joint is the bomb.

You get the feeling that Cinema Nolita might operate at a loss as part of someone's clever tax write-off, or perahps it was set up for a bunch of neighborhood celebs with exiquisite tastes and an understandable preference for avoiding overly public retail outlets like Blockbuster (actually David Bowie and Moby live around the corner), and that's just fine by us.

So imagine our surprise when we found "Battle Royale" and a newly issued copy of "Branded to Kill" on DVD. That's right--time for another time-honored Japanese Video Night at Air Massive HQ!

BATTLE ROYALE
"Battle Royale" is teenage violence taken to the next level: national extreme sports event. Based on the bestselling novel by Koushun Takami and directed by the late Kinji Fukasaku, the story is set in a Japan where each year one high school class is selected for Battle Royale, or B.R., a last-man standing competition wherein a matter of days the students must fight it to the death on an abandoned island.

Think of it as "Lord of Flies" meets "Survivor" meets high school ... BUT WITH GUNS! The game ends when all but one of the student body have been murdered.

To put the game in a socio-cultural context, consider the following backgrounder that appears at the begiining of the film:

"At the dawn of the Millenium, the nation collapsed. At 15% unemployment, 10 million were out of work, 800,000 students boycotted school. The adults lost confidence, and fearing the youth, eventually passed the 'Millenium Educational Reform Act' ... AKA: The B.R. Act."

The blood-letting is staggering. The violence is mindless, though it's mostly unleashed in the name of survival. With some forty-plus students in the class, one would think that killing off each and every one of them, which the film thoroughly and graphically documents, would quickly become tedious. It doesn't. People die in all sorts of fascinating ways and circumstances, some predictable, but many more in ways you may never have imagined.

The variety of death is partly due to the variety of weapons. At the beginning, as the Battle Royale contest officially begins, each student is handed a bag containing a weapon. Some get guns, crossbows, and axes. The less fortunate get flashlights and compasses.

With its endless stream of bloody murders and catty high-school politics, the movie may come across as just another teen-horror-exploition flick, but even so, it works. In spite of the violence, the movie is strangely compelling. The pace never slows. The narrative is steadfastedly unpredictable, leading to Battle Royale's surprising conclusion.

The film stars, among others, "Beat" Takeshi Kitano ("Hanabi," "Brother," "Sonatine") as the students' "teacher," a man on the verge of becoming mentally unhinged while struggling to manage a spiraling dysfunctional family relationship from afar. This guy has major issues.

The heroes of our story are two students, a girl and boy determined to survive the game despite the fact that inexoribly, as the rules of B.R. clearly state, there can only be one survivor. The tragedy is that even if one of the students manages to win the contest, it will only be because everyone else--friend and foe alike--is dead.

Ultimately, Battle Royale stands as a kind of What If scenario that plays out one possible method for dealing with a generation of Japanese teenagers ever more violent, unruly and disaffected within a culture that imposes great pressures on its youth and an educational system at its wits' end on how to deal with them.

Battle Royale will always be among the most influential works of legendary director Kinji Fukasaku's filmographic legacy. The movie was his penultimate piece of cinema and its sequel, "Battle Royale II," was the last movie he made before succumbing to bone cancer in 2003.

Quentin Tarrantino is supposedly a fan of "Battle Royale" and was inspired to cast one of the film's stars, the actress Chiaki Kuriyama, as the school-girl-uniformed assassin Go Go Yubari in his recent (and brilliant) cinematic blood-fest, "Kill Bill Vol. 1."
-- Jay Han + Ivan Corsa

RELATED LINKS

Comprehensive Battle Royale Film Web Site

Battle Royale Review -- Jason Korsner / BBCi News

Bio: Kinji Fukasaku [IMDb]

Insider Says Nipplegate Unlikely to Spur Album Sales


Now that everyone is trying hard to put Nipplegate behind them and get on with their so-called lives, Damien Cave reports in Rolling Stone that the Janet Jackson - Justin Timberlake bared-breast (warning: links to breast photo) stunt cum "wardrobe malfunction" during the Super Bowl Halftime Show will probably not positively effect sales of Jackson forthcoming album, "Damita Jo."

An album track called "Just a Little While" was oh-so-coincidentally pre-released the day after the Super Bowl ... Hmmm.

As the saying goes, there's no such thing as bad publicity. But that may be changing because audiences have increasingly become desensitized to celebrity shock tactics and controversy-generating media stunts.
"As a society, we're becoming numb to this," says Kirk Harding, a marketing executive at Universal, who works with hip-hop acts. "Think how hard it would be to be the Sex Pistols or N.W.A right now -- to shock people with just lyrics or music."

It's worth noting that on the cover of "Damita Jo," Jackson appears topless (her boobs are covered by folded arms). A decade earlier Miss Jackson appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone similarly unclothed save for a pair of hands masking her bosom.

But even if the "Teat Offensive" (as the Daily Show's John Stewart called it) indeed fails to help shift extra copies of Janet's new CD, the incident may have been successful nonetheless.

Consider that, as a "celebrity" ultimately in need of regular exposure and with an image to manage and keep relevant in the pop culture space, Jackson got LOTS of media attention. Perhaps more than she or Timberlake had ever bargained for.

In the case of Janet's image, being relevant is tres important, especially these days when it seems comparitvely tame next to the highly sex-charged (and much younger) competition at topping the charts.

Christina Aguilera, Beyonce Knowles, and Lil' Kim are younger, hotter, hipper and raunchier than Janet. Tittie-Gate may have been merely a way to raise the bar, and in doing so help Janet regain an edge and earn some "scandal" cred, while keeping that image relevant for, if not years, at least weeks.

But will it boost album sales? Or will hurt them? Does it matter?

Even if the entire episode proves to have backfired, "The Incident" has had major ripple effects (or should that be nipple effects?) across the media-scape and pop culture. Just look at the hyper-vigilance and public mea culpa at this year's Grammy Awards. Meanwhile the government is holding hearings.

As a result, Jackson has guaranteed herself a place in the history books with a footnote that may eclipse her larger pop music accomplishments.

Twenty years from now, don't be suprised when VH1 runs a nostalgic look back at the '00s (in what will certainly be called "I Love the '00s"--what else?), and there is Janet, where her mammary will have earned a spot in the hour-long look back at the year that was 2004.

The video clip of the moment when Timberlake rips off her top -- the precise moment of the wardrobe malfunction -- will replay again and again and again, ad infinitum. (But we're used to that by now, aren't we?)

And speaking of ripple through popular culture. It's pleasant to see that Jackson's breast exposure has trickled down to the creative D.I.Y. blogosphere.

At the Amateur Gourmet, a cooking blog run by an American law student, there's a story about how to male a Janet Jackson Breast cupcake that resembles the singer's right tit in surprising detail, right ndown to the ninja star-like pastie Janet had snugly mounted on her right nipple.

Now THAT'S poetic justice!

The nipple ripple, if you will, continues full-circle as CNN covers it and a "Janet Jackson" comments on the culinary news item. The recipe is included, as is a selection of comparison photos. The cupcakes look delicious. Yum yum. Bon appetite!

-- Adrian Tharani + Shibuya Kid

RELATED LINKS

+ Official Janet Jackson Web Site

+ International Fan Site: Miss Janet

+ Bio: Janet Jackson [MTV]

+ Janet Jackson Breast Cupcakes
[Amateur Gourmet]

+ Google News Search Results for "Janet Jackson"

Saw "Tokyo Godfathers" Monday night. This is the latest anime feature by Madhouse studios and acclaimed Japanese director Satoshi Kon, who directed two other excellent full-length animated films, "Millennium Actress" and "Perfect Bue." The latter is arguably a must-include in the canon of great, serious anime from the decade that started with "Akira" in the late eighties.

Despite the ever-increasing number of stunning anime distributed in America in recent years, "Tokyo Godfathers" stands out from most of this theatrically released output, such as "Cowboy Bebop" and "Metropolis." An exception being last year's Academy Award-winning Hayao Miyazaki film, "Spirited Away," itself a masterwork in a class by itself.

"Tokyo Godfathers" is a tale about a homeless trio suffering through early winter in snow-covered and otherwise normal hyper-consumerist Tokyo on Christmas eve. When they stumble across an abandoned infant buried in a garbage heap, their adventure begins. They try to take care of the crying babe, whom they name Kiyoko, and figure out whether to go to the police or search for the child's parents, a troubled young couple who have gone out of their way not to be found.

Our homeless heroes are a bearded, midlle-aged drunkard named Gin, a similarly-aged transvestite called Hana, and a teenage girl, Miyuki, a runaway who seems to have left home more out of spite after a family dispute rather than hard times.

As Gin, Hana and Miyuki set out to find Kiyoko's parents, they detour through the Tokyo underworld, from yakuza warfare to immigrant slums and a trannie karaoke club--all the warts of Japanese society otherwise hidden. During the search, three "Godfathers" confront their pasts and the misfortunes that led them to living rough on the streets.

Also unlike many recent anime films imported to US cineplexes, "Tokyo Godfather" dwells firmly in the world of the real rather than the fantastic or sci-fi. The film's Tokyo is like that in Sofia Coppola's "Lost Translation"; it's Tokyo as contemporary city with real (albeit anime-real) people facing real problems: alcoholism, gambling debts, and dysfunctional families.

Tokyo Godfather narrative does have it's share of minor miracles, as well as one big miracle, that lend it a supernatural element and nip at the movie-goer's requisite suspension of disbelief, but which isn't entirely outside the realm of the possible. The effect is a charm.

Seeing Tokyo as winter wonderland in the movie reminded us that it doesn't snow in Japan's capital as often or reguarly as here in New York. But when it does Tokyo's nighttime neon glow gives a snowed-in metropolis a whole new look and feel, one we loved to see again someday. For Japan's homeless though, it can only be brutal, as elsewhere.

Our favorite seen in the movie takes place on a crowded subway where two teenage girls are in a frenzy typing text messages (or playing games) on their cellphones. The action is just part of the scenery and has nothing to do with the story, but it's, as are the way the opening credits in Japanese have been inserted into the urban landscape as advertising on buses and various street signage. Masterful cinematic touches from yet another anime master.
-- Ivan Corsa + The Kid From Kyoto

RESOURCE LINKS

+ Tokyo Godfathers / The Official Sony Pictures Web Site

+ Satoshi Kon Biography / Filmbug

+ Millennium Actress

+ Perfect Blue

+ Tokyo Godfathers Review: Roger Ebert / Chicago Sun-Times

+ Tokyo Godfathers Review: A.O. Scott / New York Times
(Registration required)

+ Tokyo Godfathers Review: James Hoberman / Village Voice

+ Hayao Miyazaki Biography / Nausicaa.net

+ "Spirited Away" Review: Roger Ebert / Chicago Sun-Times