After yakuza boss Kurata dissolves his own criminal empire, a rival kingpin offers a position to Kurata's top operative, Tetsuya "Phoenix Tetsu" Hondo. When the fiercely loyal Tetsu declines, Otsuka taps unstoppable Tatsuzo the "Viper", a ruthless gun-for-hire, to assassinate him. As the Viper trails his target through the countryside, the agile Phoenix Tetsu grows concerned that one of his former associates has betrayed him.
15 Feb Tokyo Drifter (1966)
Holy Cheese Knives
If you are fed up by ordinary manufactured campiness, but still have normal levels of humour.. Which is to say if you find Austin Powers not only boring but trivial, you might check this out. It is high camp. It is ridiculous in ways that in other action films we readily accept: think the recent James Bonds. There is a joke product placement — for hair driers — that is really funny.
We have the ordinary sort of thing that qualifies: cheesy songs, goofy hero, posed action, jingly hipness. But we have a level of cheesiness that goes beyond the Tarantino level, beyond the usual joke. The cinematography is one big joke, one that still works today because the big movies still use Vietnam era visual devices.
We have jokes on Bertalucci, Welles, Kurosawa. Leone of course. We have a couple stagings from Bergman even. It is not worth the effort to single out any Frenchman it seems, treating them with the contempt of wholesale dismissal.
Under ordinary circumstances, I would not recommend this because the usual level of the joke gets pretty tiring after 20-30 minutes. But the cinematic jokes and references keep coming, as though there were a catalogue (like we are told the Coen brothers keep). The blatant vacancy of the visuals is pretty damning.
Posted in 2011
Ted’s Evaluation — 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
No Comments