Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima cranked up the concept of reality T.V a few notches in 1970 when he invited a few of his media pals along to a hijacking of a government building where he then performed seppuku (Ritual self disembowelling) as a protest against the erosion of traditional Japanese values. Japan in the late 60's saw an upsurge of such demonstrations against western influence an uprising which had seen riots outside the Budokan Sports Arena a few years previously when the Beatles appeared there. Somewhere during this volatile chapter of cultural osmosis director Seijun Suzuki got fired by the Nikkitsu film company for making his masterpiece BRANDED TO KILL.
This maverick film maker was already on thin ice with his fiercely conservative paymasters when his 1966 film TOKYO DRIFTER took the Yakuza (Japanese gangster) genre into new (and thus feared) directions but BRANDED TO KILL was the one that finally broke the chopstick - Rendering the director unemployable for a decade.
BRANDED TO KILL charts the fall and fall of No3 Killer, (Jo Shishido) a down at heel hit-man, who bodges an assignment when a butterfly lands on the end of his rifle just at the crucial moment. For this gaff he is now subject to the murderous attentions of the mythical No1 Killer.
Looking like a giant Gopher in a mohair suit and Raybans, No3 Killer finds himself in a bizarre vortex of shadows and monochrome as he attempts to save his girlfriend from being incinerated, get the better of superior Killer No1 and to survive to become No1 himself. His bizarre quirk of using boiled rice as a form of Viagra does nothing to make his journey anymore straightforward.
Surely one of the most beautiful black and white films ever, BRANDED TO KILL is a collision of American 'Noir' and giddy Japanese oddness. A genuine cinematic experience - everything within the frame appears to be sculptured from mercury.
Cultural Osmosis is rarely an easy thing, but when it works, the result is often something like the offbeat gorgeousness of BRANDED TO KILL.
