GeneChing
01-27-2012, 04:46 PM
Enter to win OUTRAGE on DVD (http://www.kungfumagazine.net/index.html)! Contest ends 6:00 p.m. PST on 02/09/2012. Good luck everyone!
Outrage (2011) (http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/movies/outrage-directed-by-takeshi-kitano-review.html)
Magnet Releasing
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/12/02/arts/02OUTRAGE_SPAN/02OUTRAGE_SPAN-articleLarge.jpg
Takeshi Kitano, as Otomo, taking aim in “Outrage,” a yakuza film he wrote and directed.
The Violence That Japanese Gangsters Do: Betrayal Among the Yakuza
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: December 1, 2011
In “Outrage,” a new yakuza story from Takeshi Kitano, the assaults on the human body are frequent, brutal and at times accompanied by cruel comedy. One man nearly loses his sight; another surely loses his hearing (chopsticks go where none should); and a third suffers a gruesome, teeth-shattering assault during a dental exam, an attack that suggests that Mr. Kitano may have watched “Marathon Man” in the decade since he directed “Brother,” his last yakuza film. Whatever their inspirations, these baroque spasms of violence — evoking see, hear and speak no evil — are just a few of the tortures that he rains down on his characters like a vengeful, mocking god.
Perhaps best known in the United States for his yakuza and cop movies, including the masterly “Sonatine” and “Hana-bi,” Mr. Kitano and his films resist easy genre categorization. He makes bloody, disgusting art films and poetic pulp fictions, and restlessly shifts between absurdity and seriousness. (His period samurai movie, “The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi,” ends with an exuberant clog dance shot like a Busby Berkeley extravaganza.) “Outrage,” set in the present, hews to a largely familiar gangster template, with degrees of bad (badder, baddest) men fighting in a war of all against all. Somewhat muted, it has few true surprises, which may be intentional because a familiarity with the yakuza, its rituals, violence and code helps make the ensuing narrative surprises pop.
Written, directed and edited by Mr. Kitano, the vertiginous story centers on the Sanno-kai crime organization, a hydra-headed, Tokyo-based syndicate led by a plump smiler in a Nehru jacket normally known only as Mr. Chairman (Soichiro Kitamura). The film opens at an isolated compound just as a meeting with the organization’s different clan bosses and underbosses is breaking up. One boss, Ikemoto (Jun Kunimura), while serving time in prison, has made a brotherly pact with an outsider, Murase (Renji Ishibashi). Warned against this alliance, Ikemoto turns to a subordinate clan boss, Otomo (Mr. Kitano, using his regular acting moniker, Beat Takeshi) to deal quietly with Murase, a betrayal — of Murase, of Otomo — that lights a fuse that sizzles, burns and blows this world to pieces.
Otomo is initially surprised that Ikemoto has asked him to break the pact with Murase, but he follows his orders with ruthless efficiency. His actions bring the predictable reactions from Murase, and the bloodshed begets retaliatory bloodshed, which in turn begets further vengeance, as one death leads to another or at least a severe beating. Gradually, Otomo begins to understand that Ikemoto’s betrayal of Murase isn’t just a breach of yakuza ethics, such as they are, but is symptomatic of a rot eating away at the inside of the organization. Otomo keeps fighting on behalf of his yakuza brothers but he is a man out of time in a world impatient for him to move on. The clans still gather around the table together, yet their rituals and sacrifices — and severed fingers — have become so many empty gestures.
Mr. Kitano’s immaculate compositions and eccentric flourishes are part of the film’s sustained, muted pleasures and are often in service to some underlying meaning. In the first scene, a long traveling shot of the visiting clan members, almost all dressed in black, underscores their numbers but also makes a vivid, pointed contrast to the white tracksuits worn by Mr. Chairman’s own attendants. Not everything is as elegantly executed, including a tiresome, would-be comic subplot involving an African diplomat and a clandestine casino that drags the story down badly and comes close to noxious racial stereotype. In time, Mr. Kitano loses interest in the diplomat and returns his gaze to the yakuza, attention that brings with it a detached, chilling finality and a sense of actual tragedy.
“Outrage” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Extreme gun, blade and chopstick violence.
OUTRAGE
Opens on Friday in New York and Los Angeles.
Written and directed by Takeshi Kitano; director of photography, Katsumi Yanagijima; edited by Mr. Kitano and Yoshinori Ota; music by Keiichi Suzuki; production design by Norihiro Isoda; costumes by Kazuko Kurosawa; produced by Masayuki Mori and Takio Yoshida; released by Magnet Releasing. At the Cinema Village, 22 East 12th Street, Greenwich Village. In Japanese, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes. WITH: Beat Takeshi (Otomo), Soichiro Kitamura (Mr. Chairman), Kippei Shiina (Mizuno), Ryo Kase (Ishihara), Tomokazu Miura (Kato), Jun Kunimura (Ikemoto), Renji Ishibashi (Murase) and Tetta Sugimoto (Ozawa).
Outrage (2011) (http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/movies/outrage-directed-by-takeshi-kitano-review.html)
Magnet Releasing
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/12/02/arts/02OUTRAGE_SPAN/02OUTRAGE_SPAN-articleLarge.jpg
Takeshi Kitano, as Otomo, taking aim in “Outrage,” a yakuza film he wrote and directed.
The Violence That Japanese Gangsters Do: Betrayal Among the Yakuza
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: December 1, 2011
In “Outrage,” a new yakuza story from Takeshi Kitano, the assaults on the human body are frequent, brutal and at times accompanied by cruel comedy. One man nearly loses his sight; another surely loses his hearing (chopsticks go where none should); and a third suffers a gruesome, teeth-shattering assault during a dental exam, an attack that suggests that Mr. Kitano may have watched “Marathon Man” in the decade since he directed “Brother,” his last yakuza film. Whatever their inspirations, these baroque spasms of violence — evoking see, hear and speak no evil — are just a few of the tortures that he rains down on his characters like a vengeful, mocking god.
Perhaps best known in the United States for his yakuza and cop movies, including the masterly “Sonatine” and “Hana-bi,” Mr. Kitano and his films resist easy genre categorization. He makes bloody, disgusting art films and poetic pulp fictions, and restlessly shifts between absurdity and seriousness. (His period samurai movie, “The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi,” ends with an exuberant clog dance shot like a Busby Berkeley extravaganza.) “Outrage,” set in the present, hews to a largely familiar gangster template, with degrees of bad (badder, baddest) men fighting in a war of all against all. Somewhat muted, it has few true surprises, which may be intentional because a familiarity with the yakuza, its rituals, violence and code helps make the ensuing narrative surprises pop.
Written, directed and edited by Mr. Kitano, the vertiginous story centers on the Sanno-kai crime organization, a hydra-headed, Tokyo-based syndicate led by a plump smiler in a Nehru jacket normally known only as Mr. Chairman (Soichiro Kitamura). The film opens at an isolated compound just as a meeting with the organization’s different clan bosses and underbosses is breaking up. One boss, Ikemoto (Jun Kunimura), while serving time in prison, has made a brotherly pact with an outsider, Murase (Renji Ishibashi). Warned against this alliance, Ikemoto turns to a subordinate clan boss, Otomo (Mr. Kitano, using his regular acting moniker, Beat Takeshi) to deal quietly with Murase, a betrayal — of Murase, of Otomo — that lights a fuse that sizzles, burns and blows this world to pieces.
Otomo is initially surprised that Ikemoto has asked him to break the pact with Murase, but he follows his orders with ruthless efficiency. His actions bring the predictable reactions from Murase, and the bloodshed begets retaliatory bloodshed, which in turn begets further vengeance, as one death leads to another or at least a severe beating. Gradually, Otomo begins to understand that Ikemoto’s betrayal of Murase isn’t just a breach of yakuza ethics, such as they are, but is symptomatic of a rot eating away at the inside of the organization. Otomo keeps fighting on behalf of his yakuza brothers but he is a man out of time in a world impatient for him to move on. The clans still gather around the table together, yet their rituals and sacrifices — and severed fingers — have become so many empty gestures.
Mr. Kitano’s immaculate compositions and eccentric flourishes are part of the film’s sustained, muted pleasures and are often in service to some underlying meaning. In the first scene, a long traveling shot of the visiting clan members, almost all dressed in black, underscores their numbers but also makes a vivid, pointed contrast to the white tracksuits worn by Mr. Chairman’s own attendants. Not everything is as elegantly executed, including a tiresome, would-be comic subplot involving an African diplomat and a clandestine casino that drags the story down badly and comes close to noxious racial stereotype. In time, Mr. Kitano loses interest in the diplomat and returns his gaze to the yakuza, attention that brings with it a detached, chilling finality and a sense of actual tragedy.
“Outrage” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Extreme gun, blade and chopstick violence.
OUTRAGE
Opens on Friday in New York and Los Angeles.
Written and directed by Takeshi Kitano; director of photography, Katsumi Yanagijima; edited by Mr. Kitano and Yoshinori Ota; music by Keiichi Suzuki; production design by Norihiro Isoda; costumes by Kazuko Kurosawa; produced by Masayuki Mori and Takio Yoshida; released by Magnet Releasing. At the Cinema Village, 22 East 12th Street, Greenwich Village. In Japanese, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes. WITH: Beat Takeshi (Otomo), Soichiro Kitamura (Mr. Chairman), Kippei Shiina (Mizuno), Ryo Kase (Ishihara), Tomokazu Miura (Kato), Jun Kunimura (Ikemoto), Renji Ishibashi (Murase) and Tetta Sugimoto (Ozawa).