Branded to Kill
Encyclopedia
is a 1967 Japanese yakuza film
directed by Seijun Suzuki
and starring Joe Shishido
, Koji Nanbara
, Annu Mari
and Mariko Ogawa
. It was a low budget, production line number for the Nikkatsu
Company, originally released in a double bill
with Shōgorō Nishimura
's Burning Nature. The story follows Goro Hanada in his life as a contract killer. He falls in love with a woman named Misako, who recruits him for a seemingly impossible mission. When the mission fails, he becomes hunted by the phantom Number One Killer, whose methods threaten his sanity as much as his life.
The studio was unhappy with the original script and called in Suzuki to rewrite and direct it at the last minute. Suzuki came up with many of his ideas the night before or on the set while filming
, and welcomed ideas from his collaborators. He gave the film a satirical
, anarchic and visually eclectic bent which the studio had previously warned him away from. It was a commercial and critical disappointment and Suzuki was ostensibly fired for making "movies that make no sense and no money". Suzuki successfully sued Nikkatsu with support from student groups, like-minded filmmakers and the general public and caused a major controversy through the Japanese film industry. Suzuki was blacklist
ed and did not make another feature film for 10 years but became a counterculture
hero.
The film grew a strong following, which expanded overseas in the 1980s, and has established itself as a cult classic
. Film critics and enthusiasts now regard it as an absurdist
masterpiece
. It has been cited as an influence by filmmakers such as Jim Jarmusch
, John Woo
, Chan-wook Park and Quentin Tarantino
. Thirty-four years after Branded to Kill, Suzuki filmed Pistol Opera
(2001) with Nikkatsu, a loose sequel to the former. The company has also hosted two major retrospective
s spotlighting his career.
and are met by Kasuga, a formerly ranked hitman turned taxi driver. Kasuga petitions Hanada to assist him in breaking back into the profession. Hanada agrees and the three go to a club owned by the yakuza
boss Michihiko Yabuhara. The two men are hired to escort a client from Sagami Beach to Nagano
. After the meeting, Yabuhara covertly seduces Hanada's wife. Hanada and Kasuga pick up a car designated for the job which unexpectedly has a corpse in the back seat. They dispose of the body, then meet the client and proceed towards their destination. En route Hanada spots an ambush. He dispatches a number of gunmen while Kasuga panics and flails about in hysterics. Foaming at the mouth, Kasuga charges an ambusher, Koh, the fourth-ranked hitman, and they kill each other. Hanada leaves the client to secure Koh's car but hears three gunshots and rushes back to find the client is safe and three additional ambushers have been shot cleanly through the forehead. At a second ambush, Hanada kills more gunmen and sets Sakura, the second-ranked hitman, on fire. Sakura madly rushes towards the client but is shot dead by him. On his way home Hanada's car breaks down. Misako, a mysterious woman with a deathwish, stops and gives him a ride. At home, he has rough sex with his wife, fueled by his obsession with sniffing boiling rice.
Yabuhara hires Hanada to kill four men, the first three being a customs officer, an ocularist
and a jewellery dealer. Hanada snipes the first from behind a billboard's animatronic cigarette lighter, shoots the second from a basement up through a pipe drain when the latter leans over the sink and, ordered to finish quickly, blasts his way into the third's office and escapes on an advertising balloon. Misako then appears at his door and offers him a nearly impossible contract to kill a foreigner, which he cannot refuse having just been told the plan. During the job a butterfly
lands on the barrel of his rifle causing him to miss his target and kill an innocent bystander. Misako tells him that he will now lose his rank and be killed. Hanada makes plans to leave the country but is shot by his wife who then sets fire to their apartment and flees. His belt buckle, however, stopped the bullet and he escapes the building. He finds Misako and they go to her apartment. After alternating failed attempts by him to seduce her and them to kill each other she succumbs to his advances when he promises to kill her. Afterwards, he finds he cannot as he has fallen in love with her. In a state of confusion he wanders the streets and passes out on the side of the road. The next day he finds his wife at Yabuhara's club. She tries to seduce him, then fakes hysteria and tells him Yabuhara paid her to kill him and that the three men he had killed had stolen from Yabuhara's diamond smuggling operation and the foreigner was an investigator sent by the supplier. Unmoved, Hanada kills her, gets drunk and waits for Yabuhara to return. Yabuhara arrives already dead with a bullet hole through the centre of his forehead.
Hanada returns to Misako's apartment where a film projector has been set up. It depicts Misako bound and tortured and directs him to a breakwater
, where the following day he is to be killed. Hanada submits to the demand but kills the killers instead. The former client arrives and announces himself as the legendary Number One Killer. He says he will kill Hanada but, in thanks for the work he has done, is only giving a warning at present. Hanada holes up in Misako's apartment and Number One begins an extended siege, taunting Hanada with threatening phone calls and forbidding him to leave the apartment. Eventually, Number One moves in with the now exhausted and inebriated Hanada under the pretext that he is deciding how to kill him. They agree to a temporary truce and set times to eat, sleep and, later, to link arms everywhere they go. Number One suggests they eat out one day and then disappears during the meal. At the apartment, Hanada finds a note and another film from Number One stating he will be waiting at a gym
nasium with Misako. Hanada waits at the gymnasium but Number One does not show. As a bedraggled Hanada rises to leave, a tape recorder switches on explaining, "This is the way Number One works", he exhausts you and then kills you. Hanada puts a headband across his forehead and climbs into a boxing ring. Number One appears and shoots him. The headband stops the bullet and Hanada returns fire. Number One slumps to the ground but manages to shoot him a few times before dying. Hanada leaps and staggers around the ring declaring himself the new Number One. Misako enters the arena and, crazed, he instinctively shoots her dead then falls from the ring.
Company conceived Branded to Kill as a low-budget hitman film, a subgenre of the studio's yakuza-oriented movies. Their standard B movie
shooting schedule
was applied, one week for pre-production
, 25 days to shoot
and three days for post-production
. The budget was set at approximately yen
. Shortly before filming began, with the release date already set, the script was deemed "inappropriate" by the head office and contract director
Seijun Suzuki
was brought in to do a rewrite. Studio head Kyūsaku Hori told Suzuki he had had to read it twice before he understood it. Suzuki suggested they drop the script but was ordered to proceed. The rewrite was done with his frequent collaborator Takeo Kimura
and six assistant director
s, including Atsushi Yamatoya (who also played Killer Number Four). The eight men had worked under the joint pen name
Hachiro Guryu ("Group of Eight") since the mid 1960s. Nikkatsu was building leading man
Joe Shishido into a star and assigned him to the film. They specified that the script was to be written with this aim. The film also marks Shishido's first nude scene. Suzuki originally wanted Kiwako Taichi
, a new talent from the famous theatre troupe Bungakuza, for the female lead
but she took a part in another film. Instead, Suzuki selected Annu Mari
, another new actress who had been working in Nikkatsu's music halls. In casting the role of Hanada's wife, Suzuki selected Mariko Ogawa
from outside of the studio as none of the contract actresses would do nude scenes.
Suzuki did not use storyboard
s and disliked pre-planning. He preferred to come up with ideas either the night before or on the set as he felt that the only person who should know what is going to happen is the director. He also felt that it was sudden inspiration that made the picture. An example is the addition of the Number Three Killer's rice-sniffing habit. Suzuki explained that he wanted to present a quintessentially "Japanese
" killer, "If he were Italian, he'd get turned on by macaroni, right?" Suzuki has commended Shishido on his similar drive to make the action scenes as physical and interesting as possible. In directing his actors, Suzuki let them play their roles as they saw fit and only intervened when they went "off track". For nude scenes the actors wore maebari, or adhesive strips, over their genitals in accordance with censorship
practices. The film was edited in one day, a task made easy by Suzuki's method of shooting only the necessary footage. He had picked up the habit during his years working as an assistant director for Shochiku
when film stock
remained sparse after the war
. Post-production
was completed on June 14, 1967, the day before the film was released.
, though the film's conventional genre basis was combined with satire
, kabuki
stylistics and a pop art aesthetic. It was further set apart from its peers, and Seijun Suzuki's previous films, through its gothic
sensibilities, unusual atonal score and what artist and academic Philip Brophy
called a "heightened otherness". The result has been alternately ascribed as a work of surrealism
, absurdism
, the avant garde and included in the Japanese New Wave movement, though not through any stated intention of its director. Suzuki employed a wide variety of techniques and claimed his singular focus was to make the film as entertaining as possible.
Genre conventions are satirized and mocked throughout the film. In American noirs, heroes, or anti-hero
es, typically strive to be the best in their field. Here the process was formalized into a rankings system obsessed over by its players. The femme fatale
—a noir staple—Misako, does not simply entice the protagonist and bring the threat of death but obsesses him and is obsessed with all things death herself. She tries to kill him, wants to kill herself and surrounds herself with dead things. Hanada's libido is as present as that of the protagonists of similar films of the period, such as James Bond
, though perversely exaggerated. Reviewer Rumsey Taylor likened Hanada's boiled rice sniffing fetish to Bond's "shaken, not stirred
" martini order. The film also deviates from the opening killer-for-hire scenario to touch on such varied subgenres as psychosexual
romance, American Gothic thriller and Odd Couple
slapstick
.
The film industry is a subject of satire as well. For example, Japanese censorship
often involved masking prohibited sections of the screen. Here Suzuki preemptively masked his own compositions but animated them and incorporated them into the film's design. In the story, after Hanada finds he is unable to kill Misako he wanders the streets in a state of confusion. The screen is obscured by animated images with accompanying sounds associated to her. The effects contributed to the eclectic visual and sound design while signifying his obsessive love. Author Stephen Teo proposed that the antagonistic relationship between Hanada and Number One may have been analogous of Suzuki's relationship with studio president Kyūsaku Hori. He compared Hanada's antagonizers to those who had been pressuring Suzuki to rein in his style over the previous two years. Teo cited Number One's sleeping with his eyes open and urinating where he sits, which the character explains as techniques one must master to become a "top professional."
The film was shot in black and white Nikkatsuscope (synonymous with CinemaScope
at a 2.35:1 aspect ratio
). Due to the wide frame, moving a character forward did not produce the dynamic effect Suzuki desired. Instead, he relied on spotlighting and chiaroscuro
imagery to create excitement and suspense. Conventional framing and film grammar
were disregarded in favour of spontaneous inspiration. In editing, Suzuki frequently abandoned continuity, favouring abstract jumps in time and space as he found it made the film more interesting. Critic David Chute suggested that Suzuki's stylistics had intensified—in seeming congruence with the studio's demands that he conform:
with Nishimura Shōgorō's Burning Nature. The films were financially unsuccessful and the former fared likewise among critics. Kinema Junpo
magazine reported that the films "resulted in less than viewers at Asakusa
and Shinjuku
and about 500 at Yurakucho
on the second day." Both Joe Shishido
and Yamatoya Atsushi later recounted having seen Branded to Kill in practically empty theatres, the latter on its opening night. Iijima Kōichi, a critic for the film journal Eiga Geijutsu, wrote that "the woman buys a mink coat and thinks only about having sex. The man wants to kill and feels nostalgic about the smell of boiling rice. We cannot help being confused. We do not go to theaters to be puzzled." Nikkatsu
Studios had been criticized for catering to rebellious youth audiences, a specialty of contract director Seijun Suzuki, whose films had grown increasingly anarchic through the 1960s. This had earned him a large following but it had also drawn the ire of studio head Kyūsaku Hori. On April 25, 1968, Suzuki received a telephone call from a company secretary informing him that he would not be receiving his salary that month. Two of Suzuki's friends met with Hori the next day and were told, "Suzuki's films were incomprehensible, that they did not make any money and that Suzuki might as well give up his career as a director as he would not be making films for any other companies."
A student film society
run by Kazuko Kawakita, the Cineclub Study Group, was planning to include Branded to Kill in a retrospective honouring Suzuki's works but Hori refused them and withdrew all of his films from circulation. With support from the Cineclub, similar student groups, fellow filmmakers and the general public—which included the picketing of the company's Hibiya offices and the formation of the Seijun Suzuki Joint Struggle Committee—Suzuki sued Nikkatsu for wrongful dismissal. During the three-and-a-half year trial the circumstances under which the film was made and Suzuki was fired came to light. He had been made into a scapegoat
for the company's dire financial straits and was meant to serve as an example on the outset of an attempted company-wide restructuring. A settlement
was reached on December 24, 1971, in the amount of one million yen, a fraction of his original claim, as well as a public apology from Hori. In a separate agreement Branded to Kill and his previous film, Fighting Elegy
, were donated to the Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art
's Film Centre. The events turned Suzuki into a legend and shook the film world. Branded to Kill, along with other of his films, played to "packed audiences who wildly applauded" at all-night revivals in and around Tokyo. However, Suzuki was blacklist
ed by the major studios and did not make another feature film until A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness
(1977) ten years after Branded to Kill. In the meantime, he subsisted on commercial and television work and writing books of essays.
Branded to Kill first reached international audiences in the 1980s, featuring in various film festival
s and retrospectives dedicated wholly or partially to Suzuki, which was followed by home video releases in the late 1990s. It garnered a reputation as one of his most unconventional, revered Nikkatsu films and an international cult classic
. It has been declared a masterpiece
by the likes of film critic Chuck Stephens, writer and musician Chris D.
, composer John Zorn
and film director Quentin Tarantino
. Writer and critic Tony Rayns
noted, "Suzuki mocks everything from the clichés of yakuza fiction to the conventions of Japanese censorship in this extraordinary thriller, which rivals Orson Welles
' Lady from Shanghai
in its harsh eroticism, not to mention its visual fireworks." Modified comparisons to the films of a "gonzo Sam Fuller
", or Jean-Luc Godard
, assuming one "factor[s] out Godard's politics and self-consciousness", are not uncommon. In a 1992 Rolling Stone
magazine article, film director Jim Jarmusch
affectionately recommended it as, "Probably the strangest and most perverse 'hit man' story in cinema." Jasper Sharp of the Midnight Eye wrote, "[It] is a bloody marvellous looking film and arguably the pinnacle of the director's strikingly eclectic style."
However, the workings of the plot remain elusive to most. Sharp digressed, "[T]o be honest it isn't the most accessible of films and for those unfamiliar with Suzuki's unorthodox and seemingly disjointed style it will probably take a couple of viewings before the bare bones of the plot begin to emerge." As Zorn has put it, "plot and narrative devices take a back seat to mood, music, and the sensuality of visual images." Japanese film historian Donald Richie
thus encapsulated the film, "An inventive and ultimately anarchic take on gangster thrillers. [The] script flounders midway and Suzuki tries on the bizarre for its own sake." David Chute conceded that in labeling the film incomprehensible, "[i]f you consider the movie soberly, it's hard to deny the bosses had a point". On a conciliatory note, Rayns commented, "Maybe the break with Nikkatsu was inevitable; it's hard to see how Suzuki could have gone further in the genre than this."
After another unrelated 10 year hiatus, Suzuki and Nikkatsu reunited for the Style to Kill retrospective, held in April, 2001, at Theatre Shinjuku in Tokyo. It featured 28 films by Suzuki, including Branded to Kill. Suzuki appeared at the gala opening with star Annu Mari
. Joe Shishido appeared for a talk session at an all-night, four-film screening. An accompanying Branded to Kill visual directory was published. The following year, the Tanomi Company produced a limited edition 1/6 scale
"Joe the Ace"Schilling, Mark (September 2003). Ibid, pp. 128–130. action figure
based on Shishido's character in the film, complete with a miniature rice cooker
. In 2006, Nikkatsu celebrated the 50th anniversary of Suzuki's directorial debut by hosting the Seijun Suzuki 48 Film Challenge retrospective at the 19th Tokyo International Film Festival
. It showcased all of his films. He and Mari were again in attendance.
's John Woo
, South Korea's Chan-wook Park and America's Jim Jarmusch
and Quentin Tarantino
. Jarmusch listed it as his favourite hitman film, alongside Le Samouraï
(also 1967), and thanked Suzuki in the screen credits of his own hitman film Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
(1999). Most notably, Jarmusch mirrored a scene in which the protagonist kills a target by shooting up from a basement through a sink drain. He went so far as to screen the film for Suzuki when the two met in Tokyo. Critics have noted Branded to Kill's influence on the films of Wong Kar-wai
, such as his hitman film Fallen Angels
(1995), as well as Johnnie To
's Fulltime Killer (2001). However, Branded to Kill was most influential in its native Japan. The film's premise, in which hitmen try to kill each other in competition for the Number One rank, is spoofed in films such as Takeshi Kitano
's Getting Any?
(1995) and Sabu
's Postman Blues (1997), which features a character named Hitman Joe. Branded to Kill played a role in the development of the long-running Lupin III
franchise. It also had a profound impact, through Suzuki's firing and the resulting student uprising, in the beginnings of the movement film, usually underground
or anti-establishment
films which focused on issues of import to audiences, as opposed to production line genre pictures.
Thirty-four years after Branded to Kill, Suzuki directed Pistol Opera
(2001), a loose sequel co-produced by Shochiku
and filmed at Nikkatsu. The character Goro Hanada returns as a mentor figure to the new Number Three, played by Makiko Esumi
. However, Joe Shishido was replaced by Mikijiro Hira in the role of Hanada. Suzuki has said that the original intention was for Shishido to play the character again but that the film's producer, Satoru Ogura, wanted Hira for the role. Reviews were of a favourable nature on par with its predecessor. Jonathan Rosenbaum
supposed, "Can I call a film a masterpiece without being sure that I understand it? I think so ..." Although some, such as Elvis Mitchell
for The Village Voice
, felt its zeal fell slightly short of the original.
format, first on February 10, 1987, then a second version on June 10, 1994. Both versions were censored for nudity with a black bar obscuring half of the frame during the relevant scenes. The first uncensored release since the film's theatrical debut was an October 26, 2001, DVD
from Nikkatsu. It included an interview with Seijun Suzuki
, two with Joe Shishido
, an Annu Mari
photo gallery and the original film trailers for it and several other Suzuki films. The release was one of three linked to the Style to Kill theatrical retrospective
. In conjunction with the 50th anniversary of Suzuki's directorial debut, the film was included in the first of two six-film DVD box sets which was released October 1, 2006. All six titles included audio commentary
tracks featuring Suzuki with various collaborators, those being Annu Mari and assistant director
Masami Kuzū for Branded to Kill.
The first North American copy surfaced in the early 1990s at Kim's Video
in New York in a video series titled Dark of the Sun devoted to obscure Asian cinema
, assembled by John Zorn, albeit without English subtitles
. The Criterion Collection
released the film in the United States and Canada on laserdisc
in 1998, followed by a DVD on February 23, 1999, both containing a 15-minute interview with Suzuki, poster gallery of Shishido films and liner notes by Zorn. Home Vision Cinema release a VHS version on June 16, 2000. Both companies conjunctively released Tokyo Drifter in all three formats in addition to a VHS collection packaging the two films together. In the United Kingdom, Second Sight Films released a DVD on February 25, 2002, and a VHS on March 11, 2002. Yume Pictures released a new DVD on February 26, 2007, as a part of their Suzuki collection, featuring a 36-minute interview with the director, trailers and liner notes by Tony Rayns. Madman Entertainment
's Eastern Eye label released the film on DVD in Australia and New Zealand on May 2, 2007. It also contained the original trailer, a photo gallery and liner notes.
s. The music was culled from Naozumi Yamamoto's score. Atsushi Yamatoya wrote the lyrics for the "Killing Blues" themes. Listings 27 through 29 are bonus karaoke
tracks.
Yakuza film
is a popular film genre in Japanese cinema which focuses on the lives and dealings of yakuza, also referred to as the Japanese Mafia.-Ninkyo eiga:...
directed by Seijun Suzuki
Seijun Suzuki
, born Seitaro Suzuki on May 24, 1923, is a Japanese filmmaker, actor, and screenwriter. His films are renowned by film enthusiasts worldwide for their jarring visual style, irreverent humour, nihilistic cool and entertainment-over-logic sensibility...
and starring Joe Shishido
Joe Shishido
is a Japanese actor most recognizable for his intense, eccentric yakuza film roles and his artificially enlarged cheekbones. He has appeared in some 300 films but is best known in the West for his performance in the cult film Branded to Kill...
, Koji Nanbara
Koji Nanbara
was a Japanese actor. He was born in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan. He died of a myocardial infarction in Chōfu, Tokyo at age 74.-External links:...
, Annu Mari
Annu Mari
is an Indo–Japanese actress. She is best known in the West for her role as the femme fatale in Branded to Kill . Her sisters are model Prabha Sheth and actress Yuka Kumari...
and Mariko Ogawa
Mariko Ogawa
is a Japanese actress.-External links:...
. It was a low budget, production line number for the Nikkatsu
Nikkatsu
is a Japanese entertainment company well known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio. The name Nikkatsu is an abbreviation of Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally "Japan Cinematograph Company".-History:...
Company, originally released in a double bill
Double feature
The double feature, also known as a double bill, was a motion picture industry phenomenon in which theatre managers would exhibit two films for the price of one, supplanting an earlier format in which one feature film and various short subject reels would be shown.The double feature, also known as...
with Shōgorō Nishimura
Shōgorō Nishimura
-Filmography:* Zankoku onna jōshi * Apartment Wife: Affair In the Afternoon * Affair at Twilight * Drifter's Affair * Sigh of Roses * Apartment Wife: Secret Rendezvous...
's Burning Nature. The story follows Goro Hanada in his life as a contract killer. He falls in love with a woman named Misako, who recruits him for a seemingly impossible mission. When the mission fails, he becomes hunted by the phantom Number One Killer, whose methods threaten his sanity as much as his life.
The studio was unhappy with the original script and called in Suzuki to rewrite and direct it at the last minute. Suzuki came up with many of his ideas the night before or on the set while filming
Filmmaking
Filmmaking is the process of making a film, from an initial story, idea, or commission, through scriptwriting, casting, shooting, directing, editing, and screening the finished product before an audience that may result in a theatrical release or television program...
, and welcomed ideas from his collaborators. He gave the film a satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
, anarchic and visually eclectic bent which the studio had previously warned him away from. It was a commercial and critical disappointment and Suzuki was ostensibly fired for making "movies that make no sense and no money". Suzuki successfully sued Nikkatsu with support from student groups, like-minded filmmakers and the general public and caused a major controversy through the Japanese film industry. Suzuki was blacklist
Blacklist
A blacklist is a list or register of entities who, for one reason or another, are being denied a particular privilege, service, mobility, access or recognition. As a verb, to blacklist can mean to deny someone work in a particular field, or to ostracize a person from a certain social circle...
ed and did not make another feature film for 10 years but became a counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
hero.
The film grew a strong following, which expanded overseas in the 1980s, and has established itself as a cult classic
Cult film
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...
. Film critics and enthusiasts now regard it as an absurdist
Absurdism
In philosophy, "The Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any...
masterpiece
Masterpiece
Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....
. It has been cited as an influence by filmmakers such as Jim Jarmusch
Jim Jarmusch
James R. "Jim" Jarmusch is an American independent film director, screenwriter, actor, producer, editor and composer. Jarmusch has been a major proponent of independent cinema, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s.-Early life:...
, John Woo
John Woo
John Woo Yu-Sen SBS is a Hong Kong-based film director and producer. Recognized for his stylised films of highly choreographed action sequences, Mexican standoffs, and use of slow-motion, Woo has directed several notable Hong Kong action films, among them, A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, Hard...
, Chan-wook Park and Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
. Thirty-four years after Branded to Kill, Suzuki filmed Pistol Opera
Pistol Opera
is a 2001 Japanese film directed by Seijun Suzuki and starring Makiko Esumi. As one of Seijun's last fims, it is related to Suzuki's 1967 Branded to Kill, either as a remake or sequel...
(2001) with Nikkatsu, a loose sequel to the former. The company has also hosted two major retrospective
Retrospective
Retrospective generally means to take a look back at events that already have taken place. For example, the term is used in medicine, describing a look back at a patient's medical history or lifestyle.-Music:...
s spotlighting his career.
Plot
Goro Hanada, the Japanese underworld's third-ranked hitman, and his wife, Mami, fly into TokyoTokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
and are met by Kasuga, a formerly ranked hitman turned taxi driver. Kasuga petitions Hanada to assist him in breaking back into the profession. Hanada agrees and the three go to a club owned by the yakuza
Yakuza
, also known as , are members of traditional organized crime syndicates in Japan. The Japanese police, and media by request of the police, call them bōryokudan , literally "violence group", while the yakuza call themselves "ninkyō dantai" , "chivalrous organizations". The yakuza are notoriously...
boss Michihiko Yabuhara. The two men are hired to escort a client from Sagami Beach to Nagano
Nagano, Nagano
, the capital city of Nagano Prefecture, is located in the northern part of the prefecture near the confluence of the Chikuma and the Sai rivers, on the main Japanese island of Honshū.As of April 1, 2011 the city has a population of 387,146...
. After the meeting, Yabuhara covertly seduces Hanada's wife. Hanada and Kasuga pick up a car designated for the job which unexpectedly has a corpse in the back seat. They dispose of the body, then meet the client and proceed towards their destination. En route Hanada spots an ambush. He dispatches a number of gunmen while Kasuga panics and flails about in hysterics. Foaming at the mouth, Kasuga charges an ambusher, Koh, the fourth-ranked hitman, and they kill each other. Hanada leaves the client to secure Koh's car but hears three gunshots and rushes back to find the client is safe and three additional ambushers have been shot cleanly through the forehead. At a second ambush, Hanada kills more gunmen and sets Sakura, the second-ranked hitman, on fire. Sakura madly rushes towards the client but is shot dead by him. On his way home Hanada's car breaks down. Misako, a mysterious woman with a deathwish, stops and gives him a ride. At home, he has rough sex with his wife, fueled by his obsession with sniffing boiling rice.
Ocularist
An ocularist is someone who specializes in the fabrication and fitting of ocular prostheses for people who have lost an eye or eyes due to trauma or illness...
and a jewellery dealer. Hanada snipes the first from behind a billboard's animatronic cigarette lighter, shoots the second from a basement up through a pipe drain when the latter leans over the sink and, ordered to finish quickly, blasts his way into the third's office and escapes on an advertising balloon. Misako then appears at his door and offers him a nearly impossible contract to kill a foreigner, which he cannot refuse having just been told the plan. During the job a butterfly
Butterfly
A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...
lands on the barrel of his rifle causing him to miss his target and kill an innocent bystander. Misako tells him that he will now lose his rank and be killed. Hanada makes plans to leave the country but is shot by his wife who then sets fire to their apartment and flees. His belt buckle, however, stopped the bullet and he escapes the building. He finds Misako and they go to her apartment. After alternating failed attempts by him to seduce her and them to kill each other she succumbs to his advances when he promises to kill her. Afterwards, he finds he cannot as he has fallen in love with her. In a state of confusion he wanders the streets and passes out on the side of the road. The next day he finds his wife at Yabuhara's club. She tries to seduce him, then fakes hysteria and tells him Yabuhara paid her to kill him and that the three men he had killed had stolen from Yabuhara's diamond smuggling operation and the foreigner was an investigator sent by the supplier. Unmoved, Hanada kills her, gets drunk and waits for Yabuhara to return. Yabuhara arrives already dead with a bullet hole through the centre of his forehead.
Hanada returns to Misako's apartment where a film projector has been set up. It depicts Misako bound and tortured and directs him to a breakwater
Breakwater (structure)
Breakwaters are structures constructed on coasts as part of coastal defence or to protect an anchorage from the effects of weather and longshore drift.-Purposes of breakwaters:...
, where the following day he is to be killed. Hanada submits to the demand but kills the killers instead. The former client arrives and announces himself as the legendary Number One Killer. He says he will kill Hanada but, in thanks for the work he has done, is only giving a warning at present. Hanada holes up in Misako's apartment and Number One begins an extended siege, taunting Hanada with threatening phone calls and forbidding him to leave the apartment. Eventually, Number One moves in with the now exhausted and inebriated Hanada under the pretext that he is deciding how to kill him. They agree to a temporary truce and set times to eat, sleep and, later, to link arms everywhere they go. Number One suggests they eat out one day and then disappears during the meal. At the apartment, Hanada finds a note and another film from Number One stating he will be waiting at a gym
Gym
The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, that mean a locality for both physical and intellectual education of young men...
nasium with Misako. Hanada waits at the gymnasium but Number One does not show. As a bedraggled Hanada rises to leave, a tape recorder switches on explaining, "This is the way Number One works", he exhausts you and then kills you. Hanada puts a headband across his forehead and climbs into a boxing ring. Number One appears and shoots him. The headband stops the bullet and Hanada returns fire. Number One slumps to the ground but manages to shoot him a few times before dying. Hanada leaps and staggers around the ring declaring himself the new Number One. Misako enters the arena and, crazed, he instinctively shoots her dead then falls from the ring.
Cast
- Joe ShishidoJoe Shishidois a Japanese actor most recognizable for his intense, eccentric yakuza film roles and his artificially enlarged cheekbones. He has appeared in some 300 films but is best known in the West for his performance in the cult film Branded to Kill...
as Goro Hanada, the Number Three Killer: a hitman with a fetishSexual fetishismSexual fetishism, or erotic fetishism, is the sexual arousal a person receives from a physical object, or from a specific situation. The object or situation of interest is called the fetish, the person a fetishist who has a fetish for that object/situation. Sexual fetishism may be regarded, e.g...
for the smell of boiling rice. He is gainfully employed by the yakuza until a butterfly lands on the barrel of his rifle during a "Devil's job". He misses his target and is marked for death—then descends into a world of alcohol and paranoia. Shishido has been called the face of Suzuki's films, owing in part to their frequent collaborations, this being among the most prominent. After middling success in Nikkatsu melodramaMelodramaThe term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
s he underwent plastic surgeryCheek augmentationCheek augmentation is a cosmetic surgical procedure that is intended to emphasize the cheeks on a person's face. To augment the cheeks, a plastic surgeon may place a solid implant over the cheekbone. Injections with the patients' own fat or a soft tissue filler, like Restylane, are also popular....
, enlarging his cheeks several sizes. He returned to tremendous success as a heavyVillainA villain is an "evil" character in a story, whether a historical narrative or, especially, a work of fiction. The villain usually is the antagonist, the character who tends to have a negative effect on other characters...
and, soon thereafter, a star. - Koji NanbaraKoji Nanbarawas a Japanese actor. He was born in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan. He died of a myocardial infarction in Chōfu, Tokyo at age 74.-External links:...
as the Number One Killer: the legendary hitman whose existence remains a subject of debate. Incognito, he employs the yakuza to provide bodyguards. Later, he reappears with the intention of killing Hanada, first trapping him in an apartment, then moving in with him, before their final showdown in a public gymnasium. - Isao TamagawaIsao Tamagawawas a Japanese actor. He appeared in the Japanese film Branded to Kill, as Michihiko Yabuhara: the yakuza boss that hires Hanada and seduces his wife. Upon the discovery that his diamond smuggling operation has been burgled, he employs Hanada to execute the guilty parties then adds him to the list...
as Michihiko Yabuhara: the yakuza boss that hires Hanada and seduces his wife. Upon the discovery that his diamond smuggling operation has been burgled, he employs Hanada to execute the guilty parties then adds him to the list when he flubs the job. His final appearance is with a bullet hole in his head. - Annu MariAnnu Mariis an Indo–Japanese actress. She is best known in the West for her role as the femme fatale in Branded to Kill . Her sisters are model Prabha Sheth and actress Yuka Kumari...
as Misako Nakajo: the femme fataleFemme fataleA femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art...
with a penchant for dead butterflies and birds. She picks Hanada up in her open top convertible when his car breaks down in the rain. Under Yabuhara's direction she enlists him to kill a foreigner. She attempts to kill Hanada but falls in love with him, which instigates her capture and use as bait by Number One. Mari has said she was experiencing suicidal urges at the time she first read the script and the character captivated her. "I loved her name, but it was her first line 'My dream is to die' that had a profound impact on me. It was like lightning." - Mariko OgawaMariko Ogawais a Japanese actress.-External links:...
as Mami Hanada: Hanada's wife who has a predilection towards walking around the house nude. Shortly after meeting Yabuhara she enters an affair with him. When her husband's career sours she attempts mariticideMariticideMariticide literally means the murder of one's married partner, but has become most associated with the murder of a husband by his wife, as the reverse is given the name uxoricide.In England the punishment until 1790 was to be strangled and burnt at the stake.-Historical:* Laodice I allegedly...
and flees—to be confronted later at Yabuhara's club. - Hiroshi MinamiHiroshi Minamiwas a Japanese actor. He appeared in Branded to Kill, as Gihei Kasuga: formerly a ranked hitman who lost his nerve and took to drinking. After introducing Hanada to Yabuhara he joins the former in a dangerous chauffeur mission. His nerves get the better of him and he experiences a short-lived...
as Gihei Kasuga: formerly a ranked hitman who lost his nerve and took to drinking. After introducing Hanada to Yabuhara he joins the former in a dangerous chauffeur mission. His nerves get the better of him and he experiences a short-lived mental breakdownMental breakdownMental breakdown is a non-medical term used to describe an acute, time-limited phase of a specific disorder that presents primarily with features of depression or anxiety.-Definition:...
.
Production
The NikkatsuNikkatsu
is a Japanese entertainment company well known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio. The name Nikkatsu is an abbreviation of Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally "Japan Cinematograph Company".-History:...
Company conceived Branded to Kill as a low-budget hitman film, a subgenre of the studio's yakuza-oriented movies. Their standard B movie
B movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
shooting schedule
Shooting schedule
A shooting schedule is a project plan of each day's shooting for a film production. It is normally created and managed by the assistant director, who reports to the production manager managing the production schedule...
was applied, one week for pre-production
Pre-production
Pre-production or In Production is the process of preparing all the elements involved in a film, play, or other performance.- In film :...
, 25 days to shoot
Filmmaking
Filmmaking is the process of making a film, from an initial story, idea, or commission, through scriptwriting, casting, shooting, directing, editing, and screening the finished product before an audience that may result in a theatrical release or television program...
and three days for post-production
Post-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...
. The budget was set at approximately yen
Japanese yen
The is the official currency of Japan. It is the third most traded currency in the foreign exchange market after the United States dollar and the euro. It is also widely used as a reserve currency after the U.S. dollar, the euro and the pound sterling...
. Shortly before filming began, with the release date already set, the script was deemed "inappropriate" by the head office and contract director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
Seijun Suzuki
Seijun Suzuki
, born Seitaro Suzuki on May 24, 1923, is a Japanese filmmaker, actor, and screenwriter. His films are renowned by film enthusiasts worldwide for their jarring visual style, irreverent humour, nihilistic cool and entertainment-over-logic sensibility...
was brought in to do a rewrite. Studio head Kyūsaku Hori told Suzuki he had had to read it twice before he understood it. Suzuki suggested they drop the script but was ordered to proceed. The rewrite was done with his frequent collaborator Takeo Kimura
Takeo Kimura
was a Japanese art director, writer and film director. Beginning his career in 1945 he art-directed well over 200 films. He was one of Japan's best known art directors, most famously for his collaborations with cult director Seijun Suzuki through the 1960s at the Nikkatsu Company, exemplified by...
and six assistant director
Assistant director
The role of an Assistant director include tracking daily progress against the filming production schedule, arranging logistics, preparing daily call sheets, checking cast and crew, maintaining order on the set. They also have to take care of health and safety of the crew...
s, including Atsushi Yamatoya (who also played Killer Number Four). The eight men had worked under the joint pen name
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
Hachiro Guryu ("Group of Eight") since the mid 1960s. Nikkatsu was building leading man
Leading man
Leading man or leading gentleman is an informal term for the actor who plays a love interest to the leading actress in a film or play. A leading man is usually an all rounder; capable of singing, dancing, and acting at a professional level, but never outshining his female co-star...
Joe Shishido into a star and assigned him to the film. They specified that the script was to be written with this aim. The film also marks Shishido's first nude scene. Suzuki originally wanted Kiwako Taichi
Kiwako Taichi
was a Japanese film actress. She appeared in 20 films between 1967 and 1985.-Selected filmography:* Kuroneko * Fire Festival -External links:...
, a new talent from the famous theatre troupe Bungakuza, for the female lead
Leading lady
Leading lady is an informal term for the actress who plays a secondary lead or supporting role, usually a love interest, to the leading actor in a film or play. It is not usually applied to the leading actress in the performance if her character is the protagonist.A leading lady can also be an...
but she took a part in another film. Instead, Suzuki selected Annu Mari
Annu Mari
is an Indo–Japanese actress. She is best known in the West for her role as the femme fatale in Branded to Kill . Her sisters are model Prabha Sheth and actress Yuka Kumari...
, another new actress who had been working in Nikkatsu's music halls. In casting the role of Hanada's wife, Suzuki selected Mariko Ogawa
Mariko Ogawa
is a Japanese actress.-External links:...
from outside of the studio as none of the contract actresses would do nude scenes.
Suzuki did not use storyboard
Storyboard
Storyboards are graphic organizers in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence....
s and disliked pre-planning. He preferred to come up with ideas either the night before or on the set as he felt that the only person who should know what is going to happen is the director. He also felt that it was sudden inspiration that made the picture. An example is the addition of the Number Three Killer's rice-sniffing habit. Suzuki explained that he wanted to present a quintessentially "Japanese
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
" killer, "If he were Italian, he'd get turned on by macaroni, right?" Suzuki has commended Shishido on his similar drive to make the action scenes as physical and interesting as possible. In directing his actors, Suzuki let them play their roles as they saw fit and only intervened when they went "off track". For nude scenes the actors wore maebari, or adhesive strips, over their genitals in accordance with censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
practices. The film was edited in one day, a task made easy by Suzuki's method of shooting only the necessary footage. He had picked up the habit during his years working as an assistant director for Shochiku
Shochiku
is a Japanese movie studio and production company for kabuki. It also produces and distributes anime films. Its best remembered directors include Yasujirō Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, Mikio Naruse, Keisuke Kinoshita and Yōji Yamada...
when film stock
Film stock
Film stock is photographic film on which filmmaking of motion pictures are shot and reproduced. The equivalent in television production is video tape.-1889–1899:...
remained sparse after the war
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Post-production
Post-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...
was completed on June 14, 1967, the day before the film was released.
Style
Like many of its yakuza film contemporaries, Branded to Kill shows the influence of the James Bond films and film noirFilm noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
, though the film's conventional genre basis was combined with satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
, kabuki
Kabuki
is classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers.The individual kanji characters, from left to right, mean sing , dance , and skill...
stylistics and a pop art aesthetic. It was further set apart from its peers, and Seijun Suzuki's previous films, through its gothic
Gothic fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. Gothicism's origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled "A Gothic Story"...
sensibilities, unusual atonal score and what artist and academic Philip Brophy
Philip Brophy
Philip Brophy, born in Reservoir, Melbourne 1959 is an Australian musician, composer, sound designer, filmmaker, writer, graphic designer, educator and academic.-Music:...
called a "heightened otherness". The result has been alternately ascribed as a work of surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, absurdism
Absurdism
In philosophy, "The Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any...
, the avant garde and included in the Japanese New Wave movement, though not through any stated intention of its director. Suzuki employed a wide variety of techniques and claimed his singular focus was to make the film as entertaining as possible.
Genre conventions are satirized and mocked throughout the film. In American noirs, heroes, or anti-hero
Anti-hero
In fiction, an antihero is generally considered to be a protagonist whose character is at least in some regards conspicuously contrary to that of the archetypal hero, and is in some instances its antithesis in which the character is generally useless at being a hero or heroine when they're...
es, typically strive to be the best in their field. Here the process was formalized into a rankings system obsessed over by its players. The femme fatale
Femme fatale
A femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art...
—a noir staple—Misako, does not simply entice the protagonist and bring the threat of death but obsesses him and is obsessed with all things death herself. She tries to kill him, wants to kill herself and surrounds herself with dead things. Hanada's libido is as present as that of the protagonists of similar films of the period, such as James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
, though perversely exaggerated. Reviewer Rumsey Taylor likened Hanada's boiled rice sniffing fetish to Bond's "shaken, not stirred
Shaken, not stirred
"Shaken, not stirred" is a catchphrase of Ian Fleming's fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond, and his preference for how he wished his martini prepared. The phrase first appears in the novel Diamonds Are Forever , though Bond does not actually say the line until Dr...
" martini order. The film also deviates from the opening killer-for-hire scenario to touch on such varied subgenres as psychosexual
Psychosexual development
In Freudian psychology, psychosexual development is a central element of the psychoanalytic sexual drive theory, that human beings, from birth, possess an instinctual libido that develops in five stages. Each stage — the oral, the anal, the phallic, the latent, and the genital — is characterized...
romance, American Gothic thriller and Odd Couple
The Odd Couple
The Odd Couple is a 1965 Broadway play by Neil Simon, followed by a successful film and television series, as well as other derivative works and spin offs, many featuring one or more of the same actors. The plot concerns two mismatched roommates, one neat and uptight, the other more easygoing and...
slapstick
Slapstick
Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated violence and activities which may exceed the boundaries of common sense.- Origins :The phrase comes from the batacchio or bataccio — called the 'slap stick' in English — a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in Commedia dell'arte...
.
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
often involved masking prohibited sections of the screen. Here Suzuki preemptively masked his own compositions but animated them and incorporated them into the film's design. In the story, after Hanada finds he is unable to kill Misako he wanders the streets in a state of confusion. The screen is obscured by animated images with accompanying sounds associated to her. The effects contributed to the eclectic visual and sound design while signifying his obsessive love. Author Stephen Teo proposed that the antagonistic relationship between Hanada and Number One may have been analogous of Suzuki's relationship with studio president Kyūsaku Hori. He compared Hanada's antagonizers to those who had been pressuring Suzuki to rein in his style over the previous two years. Teo cited Number One's sleeping with his eyes open and urinating where he sits, which the character explains as techniques one must master to become a "top professional."
The film was shot in black and white Nikkatsuscope (synonymous with CinemaScope
CinemaScope
CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically...
at a 2.35:1 aspect ratio
Aspect ratio (image)
The aspect ratio of an image is the ratio of the width of the image to its height, expressed as two numbers separated by a colon. That is, for an x:y aspect ratio, no matter how big or small the image is, if the width is divided into x units of equal length and the height is measured using this...
). Due to the wide frame, moving a character forward did not produce the dynamic effect Suzuki desired. Instead, he relied on spotlighting and chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro in art is "an Italian term which literally means 'light-dark'. In paintings the description refers to clear tonal contrasts which are often used to suggest the volume and modelling of the subjects depicted"....
imagery to create excitement and suspense. Conventional framing and film grammar
Film grammar
In film, film grammar is defined as follows:# A frame is a single still image. It is analogous to a letter.# A shot is a single continuous recording made by a camera. It is analogous to a word....
were disregarded in favour of spontaneous inspiration. In editing, Suzuki frequently abandoned continuity, favouring abstract jumps in time and space as he found it made the film more interesting. Critic David Chute suggested that Suzuki's stylistics had intensified—in seeming congruence with the studio's demands that he conform:
Reception
Branded to Kill was released to Japanese theatres on June 15, 1967, in a double billDouble feature
The double feature, also known as a double bill, was a motion picture industry phenomenon in which theatre managers would exhibit two films for the price of one, supplanting an earlier format in which one feature film and various short subject reels would be shown.The double feature, also known as...
with Nishimura Shōgorō's Burning Nature. The films were financially unsuccessful and the former fared likewise among critics. Kinema Junpo
Kinema Junpo
, commonly called , is a Japanese film magazine which began publication in July 1919. The magazine was founded by a group of four students, including Saburō Tanaka, at the Tokyo Institute of Technology . In that first month, it was published three times on days with a "1" in them. These first three...
magazine reported that the films "resulted in less than viewers at Asakusa
Asakusa
is a district in Taitō, Tokyo, Japan, most famous for the Sensō-ji, a Buddhist temple dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon. There are several other temples in Asakusa, as well as various festivals.- History :...
and Shinjuku
Shinjuku, Tokyo
is one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo, Japan. It is a major commercial and administrative center, housing the busiest train station in the world and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, the administration center for the government of Tokyo.As of 2008, the ward has an estimated population...
and about 500 at Yurakucho
Yurakucho
is a neighborhood of Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan situated in between the Ginza and Hibiya Park, near the neighborhood of Shinbashi. Unlike its tonier neighbor Ginza, Yūrakuchō provides a glimpse of Japanese life from the early postwar period, with its many izakaya and outdoor yakitori restaurants , many...
on the second day." Both Joe Shishido
Joe Shishido
is a Japanese actor most recognizable for his intense, eccentric yakuza film roles and his artificially enlarged cheekbones. He has appeared in some 300 films but is best known in the West for his performance in the cult film Branded to Kill...
and Yamatoya Atsushi later recounted having seen Branded to Kill in practically empty theatres, the latter on its opening night. Iijima Kōichi, a critic for the film journal Eiga Geijutsu, wrote that "the woman buys a mink coat and thinks only about having sex. The man wants to kill and feels nostalgic about the smell of boiling rice. We cannot help being confused. We do not go to theaters to be puzzled." Nikkatsu
Nikkatsu
is a Japanese entertainment company well known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio. The name Nikkatsu is an abbreviation of Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally "Japan Cinematograph Company".-History:...
Studios had been criticized for catering to rebellious youth audiences, a specialty of contract director Seijun Suzuki, whose films had grown increasingly anarchic through the 1960s. This had earned him a large following but it had also drawn the ire of studio head Kyūsaku Hori. On April 25, 1968, Suzuki received a telephone call from a company secretary informing him that he would not be receiving his salary that month. Two of Suzuki's friends met with Hori the next day and were told, "Suzuki's films were incomprehensible, that they did not make any money and that Suzuki might as well give up his career as a director as he would not be making films for any other companies."
A student film society
Film society
A film society is a membership club where people can watch screenings of films which would otherwise not be shown in mainstream cinemas. In Spain they are known as "Cineclubs," and in Germany they are known as "Filmclubs"....
run by Kazuko Kawakita, the Cineclub Study Group, was planning to include Branded to Kill in a retrospective honouring Suzuki's works but Hori refused them and withdrew all of his films from circulation. With support from the Cineclub, similar student groups, fellow filmmakers and the general public—which included the picketing of the company's Hibiya offices and the formation of the Seijun Suzuki Joint Struggle Committee—Suzuki sued Nikkatsu for wrongful dismissal. During the three-and-a-half year trial the circumstances under which the film was made and Suzuki was fired came to light. He had been made into a scapegoat
Scapegoat
Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any party for unmerited negative treatment or blame. Scapegoating may be conducted by individuals against individuals , individuals against groups , groups against individuals , and groups against groups Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any...
for the company's dire financial straits and was meant to serve as an example on the outset of an attempted company-wide restructuring. A settlement
Settlement (law)
In law, a settlement is a resolution between disputing parties about a legal case, reached either before or after court action begins. The term "settlement" also has other meanings in the context of law.-Basis:...
was reached on December 24, 1971, in the amount of one million yen, a fraction of his original claim, as well as a public apology from Hori. In a separate agreement Branded to Kill and his previous film, Fighting Elegy
Fighting Elegy
is a 1966 Japanese film directed by Seijun Suzuki. Filmmaker Kaneto Shindō adapted the script from the novel by Takashi Suzuki. The film has also screened under the titles Violence Elegy, Elegy to Violence, Elegy for a Quarrel and The Born Fighter at various film festivals and...
, were donated to the Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art
National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
The in Tokyo, Japan, is the foremost museum collecting and exhibiting contemporary Japanese art.This Tokyo museum is also known by the English acronym MOMAT...
's Film Centre. The events turned Suzuki into a legend and shook the film world. Branded to Kill, along with other of his films, played to "packed audiences who wildly applauded" at all-night revivals in and around Tokyo. However, Suzuki was blacklist
Blacklist
A blacklist is a list or register of entities who, for one reason or another, are being denied a particular privilege, service, mobility, access or recognition. As a verb, to blacklist can mean to deny someone work in a particular field, or to ostracize a person from a certain social circle...
ed by the major studios and did not make another feature film until A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness
A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness
is a 1977 Japanese film directed by Seijun Suzuki.-External links:* at the Japanese Movie Database...
(1977) ten years after Branded to Kill. In the meantime, he subsisted on commercial and television work and writing books of essays.
Branded to Kill first reached international audiences in the 1980s, featuring in various film festival
Film festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...
s and retrospectives dedicated wholly or partially to Suzuki, which was followed by home video releases in the late 1990s. It garnered a reputation as one of his most unconventional, revered Nikkatsu films and an international cult classic
Cult film
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...
. It has been declared a masterpiece
Masterpiece
Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....
by the likes of film critic Chuck Stephens, writer and musician Chris D.
Chris D.
Chris D., real name Chris Desjardins, is a punk poet, rock critic, singer, writer, actor and filmmaker. Chris D. is best known as the lead singer and founder of the early Los Angeles punk/deathrock band The Flesh Eaters. Desjardins was a feature writer at Slash magazine in 1977, when he formed a...
, composer John Zorn
John Zorn
John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...
and film director Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
. Writer and critic Tony Rayns
Tony Rayns
Antony Rayns is a British writer, commentator, film festival programmer and screenwriter. Much inspired in his youth by the films of Kenneth Anger, he wrote for the underground publication Cinema Rising before contributing to the Monthly Film Bulletin from the December 1970 issue until its demise...
noted, "Suzuki mocks everything from the clichés of yakuza fiction to the conventions of Japanese censorship in this extraordinary thriller, which rivals Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
' Lady from Shanghai
The Lady from Shanghai
The Lady from Shanghai is a 1947 film noir directed by Orson Welles and starring Welles, his estranged wife Rita Hayworth and Everett Sloane. It is based on the novel If I Die Before I Wake by Sherwood King.-Plot:...
in its harsh eroticism, not to mention its visual fireworks." Modified comparisons to the films of a "gonzo Sam Fuller
Samuel Fuller
Samuel Michael Fuller was an American screenwriter, novelist, and film director known for low-budget genre movies with controversial themes.-Personal life:...
", or Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
, assuming one "factor[s] out Godard's politics and self-consciousness", are not uncommon. In a 1992 Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine article, film director Jim Jarmusch
Jim Jarmusch
James R. "Jim" Jarmusch is an American independent film director, screenwriter, actor, producer, editor and composer. Jarmusch has been a major proponent of independent cinema, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s.-Early life:...
affectionately recommended it as, "Probably the strangest and most perverse 'hit man' story in cinema." Jasper Sharp of the Midnight Eye wrote, "[It] is a bloody marvellous looking film and arguably the pinnacle of the director's strikingly eclectic style."
However, the workings of the plot remain elusive to most. Sharp digressed, "[T]o be honest it isn't the most accessible of films and for those unfamiliar with Suzuki's unorthodox and seemingly disjointed style it will probably take a couple of viewings before the bare bones of the plot begin to emerge." As Zorn has put it, "plot and narrative devices take a back seat to mood, music, and the sensuality of visual images." Japanese film historian Donald Richie
Donald Richie
Donald Richie is an American-born author who has written about the Japanese people and Japanese cinema. Although he considers himself only a writer, Richie has directed many experimental films, the first when he was 17...
thus encapsulated the film, "An inventive and ultimately anarchic take on gangster thrillers. [The] script flounders midway and Suzuki tries on the bizarre for its own sake." David Chute conceded that in labeling the film incomprehensible, "[i]f you consider the movie soberly, it's hard to deny the bosses had a point". On a conciliatory note, Rayns commented, "Maybe the break with Nikkatsu was inevitable; it's hard to see how Suzuki could have gone further in the genre than this."
After another unrelated 10 year hiatus, Suzuki and Nikkatsu reunited for the Style to Kill retrospective, held in April, 2001, at Theatre Shinjuku in Tokyo. It featured 28 films by Suzuki, including Branded to Kill. Suzuki appeared at the gala opening with star Annu Mari
Annu Mari
is an Indo–Japanese actress. She is best known in the West for her role as the femme fatale in Branded to Kill . Her sisters are model Prabha Sheth and actress Yuka Kumari...
. Joe Shishido appeared for a talk session at an all-night, four-film screening. An accompanying Branded to Kill visual directory was published. The following year, the Tanomi Company produced a limited edition 1/6 scale
1:6 scale modeling
1:6 scale modeling, a.k.a. Playscale Miniaturism, is a hobby focusing on the collecting and/or customization of commercially produced 1:6 scale action figures and accessories....
"Joe the Ace"Schilling, Mark (September 2003). Ibid, pp. 128–130. action figure
Action figure
An action figure is a posable character figurine, made of plastic or other materials, and often based upon characters from a film, comic book, video game, or television program. These action figures are usually marketed towards boys and male collectors...
based on Shishido's character in the film, complete with a miniature rice cooker
Rice cooker
A rice cooker or rice steamer is a container or kitchen appliance dedicated to cooking rice. Rice can also be cooked in general-purpose saucepans.-Overview:...
. In 2006, Nikkatsu celebrated the 50th anniversary of Suzuki's directorial debut by hosting the Seijun Suzuki 48 Film Challenge retrospective at the 19th Tokyo International Film Festival
Tokyo International Film Festival
Tokyo International Film Festival is a film festival established in 1985. The event was held biannually from 1985 to 1991 and annually thereafter...
. It showcased all of his films. He and Mari were again in attendance.
Legacy
As one of Seijun Suzuki's most influential films, Branded to Kill has been acknowledged as a source of inspiration by such internationally renowned directors as Hong KongHong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
's John Woo
John Woo
John Woo Yu-Sen SBS is a Hong Kong-based film director and producer. Recognized for his stylised films of highly choreographed action sequences, Mexican standoffs, and use of slow-motion, Woo has directed several notable Hong Kong action films, among them, A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, Hard...
, South Korea's Chan-wook Park and America's Jim Jarmusch
Jim Jarmusch
James R. "Jim" Jarmusch is an American independent film director, screenwriter, actor, producer, editor and composer. Jarmusch has been a major proponent of independent cinema, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s.-Early life:...
and Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
. Jarmusch listed it as his favourite hitman film, alongside Le Samouraï
Le Samouraï
Le Samouraï is a 1967 French crime film directed by French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville, starring Alain Delon.- Plot :The story follows a perfectionist free-agent hitman, Jef Costello , who religiously adheres to a strict code of duty...
(also 1967), and thanked Suzuki in the screen credits of his own hitman film Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is a 1999 American crime action film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. Forest Whitaker stars as the title character, the mysterious "Ghost Dog", a hitman in the employ of the Mafia, who follows the ancient code of the samurai as outlined in the book of Yamamoto...
(1999). Most notably, Jarmusch mirrored a scene in which the protagonist kills a target by shooting up from a basement through a sink drain. He went so far as to screen the film for Suzuki when the two met in Tokyo. Critics have noted Branded to Kill's influence on the films of Wong Kar-wai
Wong Kar-wai
Wong Kar-wai BBS is a Hong Kong Second Wave filmmaker, internationally renowned as an auteur for his visually unique, highly stylized, emotionally resonant work, including Days of Being Wild , Ashes of Time , Chungking Express , Fallen Angels , Happy Together and 2046...
, such as his hitman film Fallen Angels
Fallen Angels (1995 film)
Fallen Angels is a 1995 Hong Kong movie written and directed by Wong Kar-wai, starring Leon Lai, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Michelle Reis, Charlie Yeung and Karen Mok.Fallen Angels can be seen as a companion piece to Chungking Express...
(1995), as well as Johnnie To
Johnnie To
Johnnie To Kei-Fung, born 22 April 1955, is a Hong Kong film director and producer. Popular in his native Hong Kong, To has also found acclaim overseas...
's Fulltime Killer (2001). However, Branded to Kill was most influential in its native Japan. The film's premise, in which hitmen try to kill each other in competition for the Number One rank, is spoofed in films such as Takeshi Kitano
Takeshi Kitano
is a Japanese filmmaker, comedian, singer, actor, film editor, presenter, screenwriter, author, poet, painter, and one-time video game designer who has received critical acclaim, both in his native Japan and abroad, for his highly idiosyncratic cinematic work. The famed Japanese film critic...
's Getting Any?
Getting Any?
is a 1995 Japanese film, written, directed, edited, and starring, Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Kitano.Yatteru is the colloquial form for yatteiru , yatteru coming from the Japanese verb yaru, which is an informal word meaning 'to do', and has become slang for sexual intercourse.Getting Any? is best...
(1995) and Sabu
Sabu (director)
is the pseudonym of Japanese actor and director .-Career:Born in Wakayama Prefecture, Sabu studied at an Osaka fashion school before deciding to go to Tokyo to become a professional musician. It was suggested he try acting and in 1986 he made his film debut in Sorobanzuku...
's Postman Blues (1997), which features a character named Hitman Joe. Branded to Kill played a role in the development of the long-running Lupin III
Lupin III
, also known as Lupin the 3rd, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kazuhiko Kato under the pen name of Monkey Punch. The story follows the adventures of a gang of thieves led by Arsène Lupin III, the grandson of Arsène Lupin, the gentleman thief of Maurice Leblanc's series of...
franchise. It also had a profound impact, through Suzuki's firing and the resulting student uprising, in the beginnings of the movement film, usually underground
Underground film
An underground film is a film that is out of the mainstream either in its style, genre, or financing.-Definition and history:The first use of the term "underground film" occurs in a 1957 essay by American film critic Manny Farber, "Underground Films." Farber uses it to refer to the work of...
or anti-establishment
Anti-establishment
An anti-establishment view or belief is one which stands in opposition to the conventional social, political, and economic principles of a society. The term was first used in the modern sense in 1958, by the British magazine New Statesman to refer to its political and social agenda...
films which focused on issues of import to audiences, as opposed to production line genre pictures.
Thirty-four years after Branded to Kill, Suzuki directed Pistol Opera
Pistol Opera
is a 2001 Japanese film directed by Seijun Suzuki and starring Makiko Esumi. As one of Seijun's last fims, it is related to Suzuki's 1967 Branded to Kill, either as a remake or sequel...
(2001), a loose sequel co-produced by Shochiku
Shochiku
is a Japanese movie studio and production company for kabuki. It also produces and distributes anime films. Its best remembered directors include Yasujirō Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, Mikio Naruse, Keisuke Kinoshita and Yōji Yamada...
and filmed at Nikkatsu. The character Goro Hanada returns as a mentor figure to the new Number Three, played by Makiko Esumi
Makiko Esumi
, née Makiko Hirano is a Japanese model, actress, writer, essayist, and lyricist...
. However, Joe Shishido was replaced by Mikijiro Hira in the role of Hanada. Suzuki has said that the original intention was for Shishido to play the character again but that the film's producer, Satoru Ogura, wanted Hira for the role. Reviews were of a favourable nature on par with its predecessor. Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum is an American film critic. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 until 2008, when he retired at the age of 65...
supposed, "Can I call a film a masterpiece without being sure that I understand it? I think so ..." Although some, such as Elvis Mitchell
Elvis Mitchell
Elvis Mitchell is an American film critic, host of the public radio show The Treatment, and visiting lecturer at Harvard University. He has served as a film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the LA Weekly, The Detroit Free Press, and The New York Times...
for The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
, felt its zeal fell slightly short of the original.
Home video
Branded to Kill was initially made available in Japan by Nikkatsu in VHSVHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
format, first on February 10, 1987, then a second version on June 10, 1994. Both versions were censored for nudity with a black bar obscuring half of the frame during the relevant scenes. The first uncensored release since the film's theatrical debut was an October 26, 2001, DVD
DVD-Video
DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs, and is currently the dominant consumer video format in Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia. Discs using the DVD-Video specification require a DVD drive and a MPEG-2 decoder...
from Nikkatsu. It included an interview with Seijun Suzuki
Seijun Suzuki
, born Seitaro Suzuki on May 24, 1923, is a Japanese filmmaker, actor, and screenwriter. His films are renowned by film enthusiasts worldwide for their jarring visual style, irreverent humour, nihilistic cool and entertainment-over-logic sensibility...
, two with Joe Shishido
Joe Shishido
is a Japanese actor most recognizable for his intense, eccentric yakuza film roles and his artificially enlarged cheekbones. He has appeared in some 300 films but is best known in the West for his performance in the cult film Branded to Kill...
, an Annu Mari
Annu Mari
is an Indo–Japanese actress. She is best known in the West for her role as the femme fatale in Branded to Kill . Her sisters are model Prabha Sheth and actress Yuka Kumari...
photo gallery and the original film trailers for it and several other Suzuki films. The release was one of three linked to the Style to Kill theatrical retrospective
Retrospective
Retrospective generally means to take a look back at events that already have taken place. For example, the term is used in medicine, describing a look back at a patient's medical history or lifestyle.-Music:...
. In conjunction with the 50th anniversary of Suzuki's directorial debut, the film was included in the first of two six-film DVD box sets which was released October 1, 2006. All six titles included audio commentary
Audio commentary
On disc-based video formats, an audio commentary is an additional audio track consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with video...
tracks featuring Suzuki with various collaborators, those being Annu Mari and assistant director
Assistant director
The role of an Assistant director include tracking daily progress against the filming production schedule, arranging logistics, preparing daily call sheets, checking cast and crew, maintaining order on the set. They also have to take care of health and safety of the crew...
Masami Kuzū for Branded to Kill.
The first North American copy surfaced in the early 1990s at Kim's Video
Kim's Video and Music
Kim's Video and Music is a video and music retail store in the East Village of Manhattan, New York City, described as the "go-to place for rare selections" and "widely known among the cognoscenti of new, experimental and esoteric music and film"...
in New York in a video series titled Dark of the Sun devoted to obscure Asian cinema
Asian cinema
Asian cinema refers to the film industries and films produced in the continent of Asia, and is also sometimes known as Eastern cinema. More commonly however, it is used to refer to the cinema of Eastern, Southeastern and Southern Asia. West Asian cinema is sometimes classified as part of Middle...
, assembled by John Zorn, albeit without English subtitles
Subtitle (captioning)
Subtitles are textual versions of the dialog in films and television programs, usually displayed at the bottom of the screen. They can either be a form of written translation of a dialog in a foreign language, or a written rendering of the dialog in the same language, with or without added...
. The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection is a video-distribution company selling "important classic and contemporary films" to film aficionados. The Criterion series is noted for helping to standardize the letterbox format for home video, bonus features, and special editions...
released the film in the United States and Canada on laserdisc
Laserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
in 1998, followed by a DVD on February 23, 1999, both containing a 15-minute interview with Suzuki, poster gallery of Shishido films and liner notes by Zorn. Home Vision Cinema release a VHS version on June 16, 2000. Both companies conjunctively released Tokyo Drifter in all three formats in addition to a VHS collection packaging the two films together. In the United Kingdom, Second Sight Films released a DVD on February 25, 2002, and a VHS on March 11, 2002. Yume Pictures released a new DVD on February 26, 2007, as a part of their Suzuki collection, featuring a 36-minute interview with the director, trailers and liner notes by Tony Rayns. Madman Entertainment
Madman Entertainment
Madman Entertainment is an Australian company that distributes international films as well as Japanese anime and manga in Australia and New Zealand. The company is owned by Funtastic Limited and is one of the major entertainment companies in Australia. It employs 130 people and has an annual...
's Eastern Eye label released the film on DVD in Australia and New Zealand on May 2, 2007. It also contained the original trailer, a photo gallery and liner notes.
Soundtrack
Forty years after the film's original release, on February 23, 2007, the Japanese record label Think issued the soundtrack on Compact Disc through its Cine Jazz series, which focused on 1960s Nikkatsu action filmAction film
Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...
s. The music was culled from Naozumi Yamamoto's score. Atsushi Yamatoya wrote the lyrics for the "Killing Blues" themes. Listings 27 through 29 are bonus karaoke
Karaoke
is a form of interactive entertainment or video game in which amateur singers sing along with recorded music using a microphone and public address system. The music is typically a well-known pop song minus the lead vocal. Lyrics are usually displayed on a video screen, along with a moving symbol,...
tracks.
Track listing
| No. | Translation | Japanese title | Romanization |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Killing Blues (theme song)" | 殺しのブルース （主題歌） | Koroshi no burūsu (shudaika) |
| 2. | "Scotch and Hardboiled Rice pt1" | スコッチとハードボイルド米pt1 | Sukocchi to hādoboirudo kome pāto wan |
| 3. | "Scotch and Hardboiled Rice pt2" | スコッチとハードボイルド米pt2 | Sukocchi to hādoboirudo kome pāto tsū |
| 4. | "A Corpse in the Backseat" | 死体バックシート | Shitai bakkushīto |
| 5. | "The Hanada Bop" | ハナダ・バップ | Hanada bappu |
| 6. | "Flame On pt1" | フレーム・オンpt1 | Fureimu on pāto wan |
| 7. | "Flame On pt2" | フレーム・オンpt2 | Fureimu on pāto tsū |
| 8. | "Manhater pt1" | 男嫌いpt1 | Otokogirai pāto wan |
| 9. | "Manhater pt2" | 男嫌いpt2 | Otokogirai pāto tsū |
| 10. | "Washing the Rice" | 米を研げ | Kome o toge |
| 11. | "The Devil's Job" | 悪魔の仕事 | Akuma no shigoto |
| 12. | "Beastly Lovers" | 野獣同士 （けだものどうし） | Kedamono dōshi |
| 13. | "The Butterfly's Stinger pt1" | 蝶の毒針pt1 | Chō no dokushin pāto wan |
| 14. | "The Butterfly's Stinger pt2" | 蝶の毒針pt2 | Chō no dokushin pāto tsū |
| 15. | "Hanada's Barb pt1" | ハナダの針pt1 | Hanada no hari pāto wan |
| 16. | "Hanada's Barb pt2" | ハナダの針pt2 | Hanada no hari pāto tsū |
| 17. | "The Goodbye Look" | サヨナラの外観 | Sayonara no gaikan |
| 18. | "Napoleon Brandy" | ナポレオンのブランデー | Naporeon no burandē |
| 19. | "Killing Blues (humming vers.)" | 殺しのブルース （humming vers.） | Koroshi no burūsu (hamingu bājon) |
| 20. | "Breakwater Shootout" | 防波堤の撃合い | Bōhatei no uchiai |
| 21. | "Killer's Bossa Nova" | 殺し屋のボサノバ | Koroshiya no bosa noba |
| 22. | "Something's Up" | 何かが起る | Nanika ga koru |
| 23. | "Beasts are as Beasts" | 獣は獣のように | Kedamono wa kedamono no yō ni |
| 24. | "Number One's Cry" | ナンバーワンの叫び | Nanbā Wan no sakebi |
| 25. | "The Tape Recorder has the Track of Destiny" | テープレコーダーは運命の轍 | Teipu rekōdā wa unmei no wadachi |
| 26. | "Killing Blues (ending theme)" (Atsushi Yamatoya) |
殺しのブルース （エンディングテーマ） （大和屋竺） |
Koroshi no burūsu (endingu tēma) (Yamatoya Atsushi) |
| 27. | "Title (karaoke vers.)" | タイトル （カラオケ vers.） | Taitoru (karaoke bājon) |
| 28. | "Ending (karaoke vers.)" | エンディング （カラオケ vers.） | Endingu (karaoke bājon) |
| 29. | "Title (dialogue-free vers.)" | タイトル （セリフなし vers.） | Taitoru (serifu nashi bājon) |
External links
- Japan Foundation notes at Cinefiles
- Criterion Collection essay by John ZornJohn ZornJohn Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...
- Branded to Kill at the Japanese Movie DatabaseJapanese Movie DatabaseThe , commonly referred to as JMDB, is an online database of information about Japanese movies, actors, and production crew personnel. It is similar to the Internet Movie Database, but lists only those films originally released in Japan. The site was started in 1997, and contains movies from Meiji...