Stars: Joe Shishido, Mariko Ogawa, Annu Mari

Director: Seijun Suzuki

Summary: Ace fighter Tetsu is recalled to Tokyo to help out his former employer who's embroiled in gang warfare. Japanese dialogue.

A not-quite tongue-in-cheek send-up of Japanese censorship and pat, by-the-numbers yakuza gangster films, this gonzo feature follows a lower-level underworld assassin (Joe Shishido) as he's toyed with and tormented by a higher-up after a botched job--caused by a butterfly. Seijun Suzuki's strategically placed animated sequences obscured 'offending' material, thwarting censors and delighting fans of the director's black humour. Suzuki, incidentally, was fired by his studio and forced to work in television for 10 years after this film. Shishido, with his collagen-enhanced cheekbones, makes a terrific anti-hero whose unusual quirks (Suzuki reasoned that a man obsessed with the scent of warm rice would signal to audiences that this guy was quintessentially Japanese) instantly endear him to new fans.

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Seijun Suzuki's absolutely mad yakuza movie Branded to Killbends 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 gun 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 Coupletruce 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, Amazon.com

Aspect Ratio:	2.35 Wide Screen
Main Language:	Japanese
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Exclusive interview with director Seijun Suzuki, Essay, Trailer reel
Year:	1967
Release Date:	February 26, 2007
Runtime:	91 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	Y U M E 016
Keywords:	Action, Kill, Subtitled, General, Wide, Screen, Adventure, Branded, Koroshi, Rakuin
Genre:	Action/Adventure