![]() He is, very importantly, the third-best hitman in Japan, with the ranking system being discussed like it's a boxing weight class. The hyper-serious macho protagonist of the time is instead Goro ( Joe Shishido), a striver hitman obsessed with the smell of rice, who falls to pieces once he realizes someone is after him. Where one would expect to see a standard, hard-boiled detective tracking down a mysterious femme fatale, Suzuki does the opposite. ![]() Suzuki disregarded the standard trappings of the genre, turning them on their heads instead. He did the exact opposite.īranded to Kill is a crime movie running at maximum speed. ![]() Suzuki was expected to make easily digestible films that could be easily understood, with simple plot lines and visuals. In an 11-year span, Suzuki made 40 films, most of them Yakuza films, or Japanese crime/mob movies. Essentially, they were films made to be consumed easily, usually in a double feature, to maximize both profit and turnover. ![]() At the time, they were considered genre fodder, the way horror movies were considered broadly until very recently. Today, noir films constitute some of the greatest films ever made, with masters like Billy Wilder, Louis Malle, and Akira Kurosawa all staking their claim in the genre. To understand Branded to Kill, one must understand the landscape of the genre film at the time. ![]()
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