Tokyo Drifter (The Criterion Collection)
by Seijun Suzuki
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Chieko Matsubara, Hideaki Nitani, Ryûji Kita, Tetsuya Watari, Tsuyoshi YoshidaDirector: Seijun Suzuki
Brand: Criterion
Cinematographer: Shigeyoshi Mine
Editor: Shinya Inoue
Producer: Tetsuro Nakagawa
Writer: Kôhan Kawauchi
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Japanese (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Black & White, Color, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 82 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-02-23
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion
Movie Reviews of Tokyo Drifter (The Criterion Collection)
Movie Review: Yakau no michi!
Summary: 5 Stars
A brilliant shabu (crystal meth) induced film about the Yakuza. The actual name of the film is Tokyo Nagaremono, and a true treat for the Yakuza obsessed (such as myself). I very much enjoy the plot, I don't like films that beat the story into your head. American cinema is designed for the mass amounts of idiots that make up this country, and if you find the plot hard to follow, you're an idiot...sorry, face it.If you found mission impossible difficult to grasp, look elswhere for entertainment. If not, this is right up your alley. Brilliant, and I mean brilliant, lighting effects cascade across this widescreen masterpiece. It's cheesball overtones are met with a drive to push cinema farther, I wish modern directors were allowed to push like this.
It's occasionally comical, well photographed, story is a joy when you have time to spare, and some Pocky (available in the asian department at Safeway and Albertsons) to munch on. It is not fast paced, so enjoy on a rainy day. The character develpment is typical Japanese style, and cliche.
The theme song will stick, along with the vivid color changing effects (never done like this). Watch the giant donut looking thing change from yellow to red at the end, enjoy the not so subtle red illumination on the blinds when the gangs secretary is shot.
Most of all, enjoy the taste of Japan in the 60's, Yakuza style.
Highly recommended for the discerning viewer. One of few films to recieve a 9of 10 rating from myself.
Yakuza no michi!
P.S. Look out for NonStop by Sabu, a rare treat.
Summary of Tokyo Drifter (The Criterion Collection)
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.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
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