Beyond Outrage

"Beyond Outrage" is the sequel to star and auteur Takeshi Kitano's epic of rival yakuza gangs "Outrage." This film is thrillingly lensed in the way that erstwhile widescreen masters such as Kurosawa and Nyquist used the full frame, and done so with a quintessentially oligochromatic Japanese patina. The story has grandeur of conception, keeps you rapt, and slickly amps up the badness of some very bad guys. The violence has larger quantum numbers than the comic book idioms of Tarantino, but is deployed with panache and grace. Among the film's climaxes is vanguard violence that will permanently prefigure how you regard baseball! Here's hoping "Outrage" becomes a trilogy.