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DEADLY
OUTLAW : REKKA
6/10
Jitsuroku
ando noboru outlaw-den : Rekka* : Japan 2002 : MIIKE Takashi
: 96 mins
It’s hard to
imagine Takashi Miike making a duller movie than Deadly Outlaw : Rekka.
Or perhaps the torpor is part of his point: maybe this is what life in
the yakuza really is like – endless boring conversations on internecine
intriguing, interspersed with sudden eruptions of ultra-violence to stop
everybody falling asleep. But even Miike in this kind of form – loose,
sloppy, apparently going through the motions – is more watchable than
the best work from countless lesser directors.
Unless you
yourself are a yazuka, the plot is incomprehensible – a watered-down
variant on the Ichi the
Killer template of a maverick psychopath getting involved in a
long-running turf war between two rival ‘companies.’ But while Ichi’s
loose cannon was pin-up Tadanobu Asano as a preening post-modern dandy,
this Deadly Outlaw is made of rather denser material: as Kunisada,
Miike veteran Riki Takeuchi is a door-filling bruiser, a bovine cross
between Michael Madsen and Elvis on a bad-hair day. Kunisada is hardly
the most complex of characters – his ‘Korean blood’ is blamed for his
viciously violent temper – but he’s a compellingly brutal creation, not
least because he provides almost all the movie’s energy.
Half an hour
or so in, just as we’re starting to lose patience with the wranglings
among Kunisada’s superiors, he happens across an opposing gang minding
their own business in an off-street garage. Making even nimbler use of
a tire-iron than Barry Egan managed in Punch-Drunk
Love, Kunisada immediately embarks on what can only be called
a kill-crazy rampage – far from pretty, but an electrifying scene that
sees Miike cutting loose as only he knows how. And there’s an unexpected
lyrical slo-mo aftermath to the gorefest, when a woman who’s witnessed
the massacre rather recklessly comforts the blood-spattered Kunisada –
who still has steam coming out of his nose and ears.
The remainder
of the film follows this pattern: lengthy and talky inactivity redeemed
by ‘Miike moments’ – including Kunisada wreaking merry hell when he gets
his hands on a rocket-launcher. His attempt to decipher the Mandarin instructions
is a comic highlight, as is another yakuza’s whimsical decision
to walk down the street completely naked – though it takes his partner
some time to spot this rather glaring state of affairs. And while the
action climax is, like too much of what’s gone before, rather perfunctory,
stick around for Miike’s non-event launderette coda, featuring a skilful
use of Japanese rock and striking just the right balance between witty
audacity and bare-faced movie-geek cheek.
25th
February, 2003
(seen 1st February, Pathe Schouwburgplein, Rotterdam – Rotterdam
Film Festival)
For all the
reviews from the Rotterdam Film Festival click
here.
* Japanese
title translates as "True Story of Ando's Gang - Legend of Outlaw
Fire"
by Neil
Young
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