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Highly Overrated But Still Good

A Masterpiece!

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Wherever the place be whence the zaniest Imamura, Ôbayashi or Greenaway might stem, Suzuki's films come from there as well. Not that "Tokyo Drifter" (1966) would exactly share a room with "Hausu" (1977), though. In fact, I find it to be closer to the early Wong Kar-Wai up until 1995, or even the contemporaries beside Imamura, certainly not excluding Kurosawa, whose "Yojimbo" (1961) could the quintessential film in the genre.Yet still I find the most pervasive companion to Tokyo Drifter from the multitude of Zatôichi films. There the kind of James Bond pop-art of a larger-than-life quest to defeat gravity (here to break free from the yakuza world) ends in the predestined pull back toward Earth. Tetsu is the one to recognize this when he's unable to escape trouble amid the snow.This was my first Suzuki, and "Tokyo Drifter" is a gorgeously synchronized film. By "synchronized" I mean the utter control Suzuki and his crew have over the movie: the story utilized effectively through the use of every cinematic means possible to not only forget about the story but to emphasize it. This means the film doesn't forget what it's supposed to do (to carry the story), yet carrying the story is the least of its concerns. What do I mean by this? One could argue that the story is weak. The reason for this is the fact that the story is so simple. It's simple, yet deceptively so: by furnishing us with all the possible known material in the genre, Suzuki doesn't go the usual way as modern action directors might as to forget about the story and concentrate on whatever skill it is some might wish to show off. Instead, he has a deceptively simple story made into a strong film because he plays the story out. And the way he does this is still not exactly what the modern cinema has been doing from the sixties onward — by looking at itself, pointing at its possibly perceived flaws and laughing at them, modern self-aware cinema makes us aware that it's our twisted notions about film that are to be laughed at. In other words, I really find much of the New Wave basically trying to educate us by showing our mistakes as filmgoers.Suzuki, however, doesn't do this. This film acts out like a guilty pleasure, which it is to some extent, yet without the washed out feeling in the end that we're somehow worse off because of it. He doesn't hoodwink us into believing what we're seeing is something it's not, and instead he carefully makes the ironies even stronger. Sure, the story is generic, yet what he does with it is unapologetically cinematic and unapologetically true to not only itself and its great sense of rhythm and humour, but also to us, since it doesn't punish us by trying to teach us a lesson about what film should be like.Instead, this is a film that's just as jazzy as its back cover descriptions make it out to be. So much of its humour is visually oriented that it's a marvellous joyride for people like me who find from Chaplin and Keaton the elixir for a rainy day. The brawl toward the end is so masterfully executed, the timing of each movement and the fun of it all, that it's one of the highlights of the film.And one last thing. Another reason why it works so well is that the actors are taking it seriously. They're not acting hip by knowing it's an act, they're actually invested in the stereotype they might be playing. This way it's Suzuki who can channel that atmosphere back to us. If this still makes sense in the morning, I'll eat my hat, although first I have to buy one.

When a Yakuza boss by the name of "Kurata" (Ryuji Kita) decides to go straight his deadly enforcer named "Tetsu" (Tetsuya Watari) chooses to stay by his side out of sheer loyalty. Unfortunately, another Yakuza rival named "Otsuka" (Eimei Esumi) decides to seize as much of Kurata's wealth now that he is weak and exposed. The only problem Otsuka has is the presence of Tetsu. Anyway, although the director (Seijun Suzuki) did an excellent job with both the music and color schemes it just didn't quite appeal to me that much. Even so there is plenty of action which I suppose some viewers will certainly find entertaining enough. Again, it's a well-made film but quite frankly I don't think it transitions very well into western culture. But that's just my opinion and I certainly have no problem if other viewers happen to disagree. In any case, it wasn't a bad movie necessarily and I rate the movie as about average.

After seeing some Kobayashi films that blew me away - specifically Kaidan and Seppuku, I was in the mood for some more Japanese cinema. I'm not any more. Tokyo Drifter and Seijun Suzuki have something of a cult reputation. I failed to see the appeal. The direction was static and Suzuki simply doesn't know how to tell a coherent story.Some people liked the colors. I personally found it to be as garish as anything from 60's-early 70's Indian cinema. There was no sense of style, little action and no characterization. I can't recall one set piece or moment of even moderate interest. The only unique thing was seeing the title character singing the title song several times during the course of the film. I believe it was a lame attempt at pathos.In short, no style, no substance, no plot or characterizations and no action. Waste of time and vastly overrated. I won't be 'exploring' Suzuki's other works.

Sensible logic might be little, but director Suzuki Seijun's surrealistic pop-art gangster feature "Tokyo Drifter" is a tour-de-fore in flamboyant, and unusual film-making. Everything about this fashionably unhinged effort reeks of ultra-coolness, with its edgy but trendy stylish guidance painting an influential pathway for many film-makers to experiment, but also providing familiar staples of noir and western inspirations to its own brash, creative juices. I admit the busily dry story is quite an unbalanced muddle, with fractured editing, but still for that time glamorously unconventional and erratically bewildering. The focus of the material is that of devotion (of business and love), but some quirky sight gags and mayhem make there way in. Mainly it's all about the majestic set-pieces though, and the delirious appeal of them are a wondrously enchanting sight. A trippy colour scheme infuses itself on the psychedelically warped set-designs of moody composition lighting, and the sudden bursts of exaggerated violence have a poetically tough awe surrounding it. The taut pace of the film stays pretty much on cruise control, but where the energy feeds off can be linked to Kaburagi So's fierily dramatic jazz musical score, and Mine Shigeyoshi's intimately snappy cinematography positioning. Even breaking up the murky narrative are odd song choices and a rhythmic theme. The colourful performances are dashing, and life-like with a brooding array of interesting characters. Testsuya Watari, HidekaI Nitani, Ryuji Kita, Chieko Matsubara and Eiji Go are enjoyably tailored to their parts. Highly stylised fun.