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Review
by RainDog: |
Before
Tadanobu Asano was Kakihara (Ichi The Killer) or
Dragon-Eye Morrison (Electric Dragon 80.000 V), he
played Samehada (Shark Skin), a shady character on the run
from five cars full of Yakuza in the mountains of Japan.
After stealing ¥100M from them, he's managed to stay
half-a-step ahead without much effort or care when he runs
into Momojiri AKA Peach Hip (Sie Kohinata), herself newly
on the run from her extremely creepy uncle (Youhachi Shimada).
Yes, it's another "On-The-Run-From-The-Mob" movie,
but the film's plot isn't as important as its cast of eccentric
characters. Besides Shark Skin and Peach Hip, we also have
a white-haired punk with an uncanny sense of smell, a hitman
with a fetish for knives and laquered advertisments, and
a completely over-the-top mouse-voiced assassin with as
many sexual issues as the man who hires him (the creepy
uncle). As a matter of fact, there's not a normal character
here, and the exercise is to throw them together, add some
conversation and firearms, and see what happens.
I don't think I'm spoiling anything
by saying that most of the characters die by the end in
frequently sudden ways. All this occurs between quiet events
which push the plot towards more violence or punctuate everyone's
oddness (though Shark Skin and Peach Hip seem damn normal
in comparison to everyone else). From Shark Skin's semi-naked,
post-coital run from the mob at to a meeting with his chair-collecting
friend who provides new clothes and passports to the climactic
scene in the creepy uncle's hotel and surrounding forest,
there isn't much to think about. If you wanted to, I'm sure
you could come up with all sorts of deep subtexts here.
Is all this a clever post-modern commentary on modern day
Japan? No, it's an excuse to be cool and have fun with guns,
narrative, and direction. Like a lot of movies, overanalyzing
the film will tarnish it. It's not art, exactly.
The story can be broken down like
so: Peach Hip runs away, meets up with Shark Skin, they
make a brief attempt at fleeing the country, and eventually
have to confront their pursuers. Yes, of course there's
more to the plot, but that's the gist. To pad it out to
105 minutes, then, what you have is a lot of disconnected
narrative—most especially between the odd collection
of Yakuza. They talk about some past jobs, try to remember
the name of a book on yoga (there's a fairly twisted reason
why they're trying to remember it), talk about a funny thing
one has in common with a cop, all the while displaying a
very clear and deep understanding of their pecking order.
There are also flashbacks, a flash-forward, brief dream
sequences and long quiet camera shots. A few conventions
are broken: Shark Skin isn't desperately trying to escape
the mob but is refreshingly confident and cool about the
whole thing. Also, the mouse-voiced assassin the uncle hires
ends up being a fairly unique character, and there are a
few moments that simply don't play out according to the
rules of movie predictability. And, an open ending is punctuated
by a few scenes that wrap up a seemingly insignificant aspect
of the story with great charm.
Sound plays a big role as well.
It frequently becomes isolated to freeze the scene like
an aural slow-motion, and is countered by the effective
use of a good soundtrack. Like most of the directorial touches
there's nothing really innovative about it, but it's effective
nonetheless. As a matter of fact, from the semi-animated
opening credit sequence to an effectively edited gun battle
in a hotel lobby, there's nothing particularly innovative
about this movie at all, yet it all hangs together in a
very entertaining—and perversely fresh—way.
Most things in this movie point
to first-time director Katsuhito Ishii playing with a Crayola
box of techniques. Luckily it works, and luckily he had
a group of actors that could pull off the eccentricities
of the characters and story. Along with the always excellent
Tadanobu Asano, veteran actor Ittoku Kishibe plays a nicely
understated knife-throwing hitman, and Sie Kohinata as Peach
Hip and Youhachi Shimada as her uncle put in solid performances
as first (and, as yet, only) time actors. All in all, this
is a very enjoyable and cool movie with a director and actors
who are obviously having fun with the material. Not every
scene is a success, or every exchange of dialogue clever,
but there's a whole lot here to recommend. (RainDog 2003)
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