Outrage

So this will the first of what I’ll assume to be many times my colleague and I will be doing solo reviews.  So for this first time, I’m going to be reviewing a film from one of my favorite directors, Takeshi Kitano.  And for those who know his films, I’m going to throw a curve ball with this and review one of his most recent films, Outrage (2010).  This is, for those who don’t know the course of his directing career, Kitano’s return to the Yakuza underworld after 10 years; his last being the movie Brothers (2000).  And this is the kinda movie that doesn’t requires any knowledge of the Yakuza, well, no more than that they are violent Japanese gangsters.  And what you really need to get set for is that violence, because Kitano doesn’t show you the violence, so much as he makes you completely ingest that violence.  But I’ll get to that soon.

The story is a simple -- and I’m using the word simple in the broadest of terms here -- Yakuza film.  What I mean is that the film focuses on the Chairman of the Sanno-kai, a huge organized crime syndicate controlling the entire Kanto region and the families underneath him.  And from that angle of the story, we watch as the Chairman begins to manipulate the two families, Murase and Ikemoto, into a quasi civil war.  But the intrigue plays into what seems like a convoluted plot; as everyone is trying to backstab everyone, and it becomes hard to follow where the orders are coming from.  But our focus is not on the families or the Chairman; it’s on a group of men under Ikemoto who basically always have to do the dirty work.  What makes them so unique in respect to the other Yakuza is that their leader, Otomo (played with stoic intensity by the director Takeshi Kitano), still clings to the old, honorable ways.  Honorable in the sense that when someone is disrespected, a finger is owed. But nowadays the rest of the families have moved on from that, leaving Otomo and his men in the old, violent past.  The biggest hump to get over when trying to get into this film is figuring out who’s who and who do they belong to.  Unless you are fluent in Japanese, it is difficult to remember everyone’s name and that adds to the confusion.  But then, after about 30 minutes, a curious thing happened: everything clicked.  Not because I remembered people’s names, but rather they become so distinctive within their own families, that you learn who’s who without actually knowing who anyone is.  That right there is confusing, but it’s a testament to the story that everything becomes organic and you get drawn into this very real and brutal world.

Did I say brutal a moment ago?  Let me say it again, BRUTAL!  Kitano is not a director who uses violence to just shock you, or for a fleeting moment to make you shudder.  No, Kitano wants you to know that this world is a violent, dark, and bleak one and we're in it.  There is very little levity throughout the film, only adding to the starkness of the violence.  I keep saying violence, but I can assume you’ve seen a violent film or two?  I can guarantee it was nothing quite like Kitano.  I will spoil one moment for you, feel free to skip this, but I want to elaborate on what I mean.  At one point, Otomo has his men try to convince a drug dealer to stop selling on their turf.  They do this by slamming chopsticks into his ear.  Blood is pouring from his ear, and he is screaming in pain, all while one man is holding the chopsticks in, while the other is repeating that he has to stop dealing.  The camera never moves, it never stops showing the chopsticks and their unfortunate placement.  The point of it and all the other even more violent and brutal scenes is that Kitano wants you to see what this underworld really is.  His shots are long and he lingers on everything, letting you sink into the world, only then to shower you in the violence.  There is one scene towards the end when everything for these families begins to unravel, when one character is killed, when I was generally unnerved.  And Kitano left the camera there for so much longer than I thought he would.  Its a stark and bleak outlook that only further helps to bolster the story and get you invested in the characters.

And a little addition to all this violence, before I finish this deranged rant, is one about the sound.  Not in the characters, since they tend to yell and fly off the handle with each other, but rather with, and I’m really banging on about this, the violence.  The sound of fist on flesh is so much louder than anything I’ve heard before.  You really hear the impact of the fist on the poor recipient.  And the gunshot are loud in the sense of a boom; all attention is drawn onto the shots.  You hear them, and then silence, further emphasizing the finality of the moment.  And that finality sometimes lingers for a while, so you can see the consequences of their actions. Kitano, throughout this whole movie, very rarely moves the camera faster than brisk crawl. The camera will sit and watch people, leaving it up to the tension of the moment and the characters to hold your attention, not any fancy film work. It's a bit jarring, what with most movies nowadays beings about the flash and little substance. While there is flash, especially from a gun or two or a lot, it's subdued, meant to be a sudden jarring moment. But watch the film, and you’ll perfectly understand what I’m blathering on about.

In the end, Outrage is incredibly violent, old fashioned, yakuza/gangster film.  For those who know the earlier films of Kitano, this doesn’t push any boundaries nor create something truly iconic.  But for everyone else, this is a violent look into a very real feeling Yakuza world.  If you can get past the difficulty of understanding who’s who, who’s ordering what, and how did they get a snake into a bathtub, you’ll be rewarded with a very well done, bleak and dark film by one of Japan’s most acclaimed director/writer/actor, Takeshi Kitano.

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So how was that?  Did you miss the back and forth?  The witty banter?  The fact there’s no one keeping me in line when I just begin to blather on about stuff?  Why not tell me in the comments, if you really have to.  But this will probably happen a few more times, when we can’t seem to organize ourselves, or when Netflix decides on canning the movie we were going to do together.  So, yeah, when we do solo reviews again, I’ll probably end up doing more Kitano or something of the like, since my partner isn’t a huge fan of Japanese films, while I, on the other hand, quite enjoy them.  And no, I’m not ending in a quote.  That’s his thing.  So, that’s it.  Go home.  But do remember to come back?  I’ll miss you.  Especially you Doug.  I don’t know if that’s your name or if anyone in this world is actually named Doug (it is such an odd name), but it’s worth it if someone was suddenly taken aback by that.  Sorry, rambling.  Done.