When we last checked in on Seijun Suzuki, he had just landed himself in some serious trouble with his employers at the Nikkatsu Company film studio. Having already warned the director that his films were getting far too weird, Suzuki offered them Tokyo Drifter, a kaliedoscopic, madcap riot, but also the best of the 38 films he had made for the company thus far. Neglecting to acknowledge the film’s obvious quality, Nikkatsu for the fourth, and apparently final time, threatened Suzuki with the sack if he didn’t shape up and turn in something relatively normal. This he managed to do to a certain extent with the period drama Fighting Elegy, released in 1966 (the same year as Tokyo Drifter). Ever so slightly appeased, his Nikkatsu bosses had obviously been lulled into a false sense of security when, the following year, they actually approached the troublesome maverick himself to tidy up a rambling and chaotic script entitled Branded to Kill. It was to become Suzuki’s 40th film for Nikkatsu in a mere 11 years; topping even Tokyo Drifter in terms of quality, it would be his best… Topping even Tokyo Drifter in terms of weirdness, it would also be his last.

Like Tokyo Drifter before it, Branded to Kill belongs to the popular yakuza genre, a mould of Japanese crime drama not dissimilar in essence to American film noir. Unlike Tokyo Drifter, however, which at least had a fairly straightforward basic plot at its centre, it is almost impossible to decipher what happens in Branded to Kill, certainly after just one sitting. I’ve seen it no less than three times now, and there’s still a lot in there that I’m uncertain about, but here goes… Hanada is a killer for hire, a hitman, and with his wife in tow, meets up with an ex-colleague who has found new employment as a chauffeur. Apparently Japanese hitmen follow a bizarrely bureaucratic ranking system, and Hanada is considered the third best in the business. Whilst on a top secret job with the chauffeur, our hero manages to kill both the fourth and second best hitmen, but the identity of the first remains a complete mystery to him. Meanwhile, Hanada’s wife has begun an affair with his yakuza boss, throwing all three of them into danger. Hanada isn’t too bothered, though, as he himself soon embarks on some extra-marital fun with the mysterious Misako, a rather maudlin young woman whose flat is decorated with dead birds and equally defunct butterflies. Unsurprisingly distracted by all this sordid tomfoolery Hanada, who is now Japan’s second highest rated hitman, attracts the unwanted attentions of the elusive number one after he botches an assassination job for the yakuza. Hanada quickly loses his grip on both reality and his own sanity as the number one hitman threatens to stalk him to an early grave. Oh, and I almost forget to tell you, throughout the film Hanada finds himself sexually aroused by the smell of boiling rice. So, there you go.

If all that wasn’t beguiling and bizarre enough in the first place (I would love to see what the original screenplay looked like before it got “tidied up”!), you should see how Seijun Suzuki brings it to the screen. Following the lurid technicolor onslaught of Tokyo Drifter, Nikkatsu barred Suzuki from making another film in colour. That doesn’t mean that Branded to Kill is any less visually arresting than its predecessor, however. What Suzuki did instead was to film in steely monochrome, creating an atmosphere that manages to be sleek, chic, moody and intense all at once. These are descriptions apt for Branded to Kill as a whole and, also like its predecessor, Suzuki’s narrative technique offers the viewer no quarter with regards to easy accessibility.

Once again the director’s cavalier cutting methods make the story often near impossible to follow, with action sequences in particular veering from the brutal to the comic before ending abruptly at almost terrifying tangents. With a plot as complicated as the one detailed above, you might think this may be some kind of hinderance, but this is a Seijun Suzuki film we’re talking about. Rather than struggle to keep abreast of everything that happens, I would recommend you simply kick back and soak up the cool and existential mood of the thing. Suzuki has a brilliant eye, one of the most distinctive in all of cinema, and Branded to Kill boasts many memorable moments. Misako’s animal morgue of an apartment should linger on in the memory for a long time, and several of the assassination scenes are equally inspired (particularly one which sees Hanada “popping” his prey from behind a huge cigarette lighter-shaped advertising hoarding). The final scenes too are insanely riveting, and amount to some of the most original in crime cinema, with Hanada and the number one hitman forming a morbid variation on The Odd Couple as they spend their final days paired together waiting for one to finally kill the other. The actor who plays Hanada is something of a novelty himself; Joe Shishido, a Nikkatsu contract player who tired of pretty boy roles and decided to have his cheek bones somewhat grotesquely enlargened by plastic surgery to help him appear tougher. Typically, Suzuki cast him in many of his films.

So yes, Seijun Suzuki made his best film with Branded to Kill, but of course it was the exact opposite of the kind of straight-forward crime thriller that Nikkatsu were looking for and this time they finally, definitely and unceremoniously issued him with his marching orders. He was officially fired for making films that “make no sense and even less money”. Although admittedly not a substansial commercial success by any stretch of the imagination, Suzuki had built up a large and loyal following among Japanese students and certain kinds of critics, and Branded to Kill was rapturously received by his supporters as yet another masterpiece. Quickly becoming identified as a key figure of the counter-culture movement in late 60s Japan, there were howls of protest from his young fans over his sacking, and a student group arranged to stage a vast retrospective of the many films Suzuki had made for Nikkatsu. This was halted however after the studio withdrew all of Suzuki’s films from circulation, meaning they couldn’t be seen in Japan or elsewhere for years to come. Nikkatsu also callously and completely unfairly tried to pin the studio’s financial troubles on Suzuki, causing the director to be ”blacklisted” by all of Japan’s major studios and unable to make another film for 10 years. It would amount to perhaps the largest career assassination job undertaken by any studio (East or West) against a former employee, and the talented, trailblazing director was rendered unemployable at the very height of his powers.

Seijun Suzuki would take Nikkatsu to court for unfair dismissal in a protracted court case that he eventually won. After his ban from filmmaking was lifted in 1977, he returned to Schochiku, the company he began his career with after the Second World War, and made his comeback with the poorly received golf drama (!) A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness. Mainstream acceptance would soon come his way, however, and his supernatural fable Zigeunerweisen would clean up at the 1981 Japanese Academy Awards, claiming top prize for both best picture and best director. Suzuki would continue making films throughout the 80s and 90s, and even turned in a loose sequel to Branded to Kill with 2001′s Pistol Opera. He is currently suffering from ill-health and as good as announced his retirement from filmmaking in 2006.

Whilst not being what you could call a well-known director (certainly not outside of Japan), Seijun Suzuki has no shortage of celebrity fans. Unsurprisingly Quentin Tarantino is a known advocate, and Suzuki is widely accepted as the godfather of edgy Asian cinema, with the likes Takeshi (‘s Castle!) Kitano and Wong Kar-Wai openly citing his influence. Personally, I have always thought of Suzuki, with his ice-cool and existential crime dramas, as providing the missing link between the hardboiled film noir masters of the 40s and 50s (Fritz Lang, Samuel Fuller) and the laconic hipsters of the 80s and 90s (Aki Kaurismaki, Jim Jarmusch). Indeed, Jarmusch’s 1999 Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, about a mafia hitman who steeps himself in Eastern mysticism, copies almost exactly a scene from Branded to Kill in which Hanada executes a target by firing up at him through a plug hole in a bathroom sink. With this influence in mind, then, Seijun Suzuki surely deserves to take his place alongside the likes of Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Melville for identifying the arty, cool and clever potential in crime cinema.

Thankfully, more and more Suzuki films are coming out on DVD these days, and both Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill have been knocking around for some time now, and can be purchased quite cheaply. I highly recommend you buy them both, and immerse yourself in the crazy world of Seijun Suzuki. Here, as a taster, is the bonkers trailer for Branded to Kill. WARNING: May contain rice-sniffing.

Tags branded to kill film of the day japanese cinema seijun suzuki yakuza films