Your training is inadequate.
-Number One

Director Seijun Suzuki and star Jô Shishido's sixth and final film together would be the one that pushed the studio, Nikkatsu, to fire the director for making a film they claimed to be incomprehensible and unprofitable. A lawsuit would ensue resulting in Suzuki becoming a bigger legend then ever before while also being blacklisted by all major studios. It would be a decade before he was able to direct another studio film while Branded to Kill would go on to become one of his biggest international cult hits with both audiences and critics.

Shishido is the #3 ranked hitman in the Japanese underworld; Goro Hanada. On the job there is none cooler then Hanada,…

I went into Tokyo Drifter knowing at least of its awe-striking imagery, but I dove into Branded to Kill knowing nothing at all. As you can imagine, I had quite a bewildering time.

Hanada is ranked as the third best hitman in the criminal underworld. However, his esteemed position as a stone cold killer is dismantled when he botches a job, causing his colleagues to hunt for his head. Seems simple enough, right? Well, I have news for you, it's much perplexing than that. The foundation for the story is easy to follow, but the narrative structure is extremely odd and jumpy, and the characters are very odd and hyperactive, sometimes totally psychotic, with little motivation as to why they…

I can't imagine that much of this film existed on paper, and based on my limited research, it didn't. It's not unusual to say something is "unfilmable" but BRANDED TO KILL is the rare breed of "unwritable". The script likely looked like any other billion yakuza movies that Nikkatsu was pumping out at the time, but it took the manic misplaced energy of Seijun Suzuki to make this into what it is.

A friend described this as a yakuza noir meets French New Wave - an interesting idea since this corresponds nicely in time with the Japanese New Wave. Suzuki is a textbook outside-of-the-box thinker fusing hardboiled assassins with wildly eccentric situations making the characters look less "bad ass" and…

Seijun Suzuki is some kind of mad genius. This is only the second movie of his I've seen, the first being Tokyo Drifter. I think on the whole, Tokyo Drifter is a better movie but Branded to Kill is way weirder. Whereas Tokyo Drifter used absurdism to comment on genre tropes, Branded to Kill uses that same idea but more as an excuse for some severe weirdness. This is a movie where the lead character has an addiction to sniffing rice, which he does between sessions of hardcore sex with his equally crazy wife in between hits, which sometimes, apparently, end up with him floating away on a balloon.

There's a plot here, too, but it really doesn't matter. The…

When you start watching Branded to Kill you are drawn into how the protagonist has a cool calm demeanor while he keeps his sunglasses for a good 6 mins only to remove them to inspect dead body. Then you realize how much you just what to pinch those big chipmunk-liked cheeks of his.

I had to look up to find out if there was any plastic modification to Joe Shishido cheeks. He did have plastic surgery in 1956 which included cheek injections that gave him his trademark, big-rounded-cheek look.

The plot is about Japan's "third-best hitman" messing up on a job and now becomes the target of the organization he works for. This
contract killer has a little quirk that…

I went into Tokyo Drifter knowing at least of its awe-striking imagery, but I dove into Branded to Kill knowing nothing at all. As you can imagine, I had quite a bewildering time.

Hanada is ranked as the third best hitman in the criminal underworld. However, his esteemed position as a stone cold killer is dismantled when he botches a job, causing his colleagues to hunt for his head. Seems simple enough, right? Well, I have news for you, it's much perplexing than that. The foundation for the story is easy to follow, but the narrative structure is extremely odd and jumpy, and the characters are very odd and hyperactive, sometimes totally psychotic, with little motivation as to why they…

Your training is inadequate.
-Number One

Director Seijun Suzuki and star Jô Shishido's sixth and final film together would be the one that pushed the studio, Nikkatsu, to fire the director for making a film they claimed to be incomprehensible and unprofitable. A lawsuit would ensue resulting in Suzuki becoming a bigger legend then ever before while also being blacklisted by all major studios. It would be a decade before he was able to direct another studio film while Branded to Kill would go on to become one of his biggest international cult hits with both audiences and critics.

Shishido is the #3 ranked hitman in the Japanese underworld; Goro Hanada. On the job there is none cooler then Hanada,…

“Branded to Kill” ist ein solider japanischer Actionfilm, der mich vor allem mit seine recht kompromisslose erzählweise beeindruckt hat. Fast könnte man das Gefühl haben in einem der typischen Rächerfilme der 80er Jahre oder in einem “Dirty Harry”-Film gelandet zu sein, doch ein Blick auf die Ausstattung des Films macht einem schnell klar, dass man sich in den 60er Jahren befindet.

Gerade Jo Shishido (Trap, Star Force) und Anne Mari (The dirty Seven, The killing Bottle) sind es, die den Film dabei tragen. Shishido überzeugt als Killer auf der ganzen Linie und Mari unterstützt dabei als mysteriöse Vertraute.

Sicher, schaut man sich “Branded to Kill” heutzutage an, könnte es dem einen oder anderen Zuschauer schwer fallen gefallen an dem Film…

I can't imagine that much of this film existed on paper, and based on my limited research, it didn't. It's not unusual to say something is "unfilmable" but BRANDED TO KILL is the rare breed of "unwritable". The script likely looked like any other billion yakuza movies that Nikkatsu was pumping out at the time, but it took the manic misplaced energy of Seijun Suzuki to make this into what it is.

A friend described this as a yakuza noir meets French New Wave - an interesting idea since this corresponds nicely in time with the Japanese New Wave. Suzuki is a textbook outside-of-the-box thinker fusing hardboiled assassins with wildly eccentric situations making the characters look less "bad ass" and…