Violent Panic : The Big Crash

Violent Panic: The Big Crash is surprising as a completely unique phenomenon not only in the filmography of Kinji Fukasaka, but also in Japanese cinema in general, even though it is also an interesting memento of its time. At the beginning of the 1970s, several genre categories were established in the category of popular trash cinema and their strength and popularity among viewers brought the medium of film a victory in another round of competition with television. However, the revitalised yakuza flicks and pinky violence exploitation that propelled Meiko Kaji, Reiko Ike and Miki Sugimoto to stardom ultimately proved to be merely a short-lived trend. Those movies appealed to viewers with their initial freshness, but as soon as their innovative elements became a formula and standard practice, that was the death knell for these genres. Violent Panic: The Big Crash thus represents one of the developmental dead-ends that the Tóei studio went down in search of a replacement for its two main genres, in which viewers had lost interest. In this case, the studio surprisingly took inspiration from American film production and the popular genre of car movies in the mold of now cult titles like Vanishing Point (1971), Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) and, in particular, the later hit Gone in 60 Seconds (1974), but it also surprisingly mixed the serious and fateful storylines of these films with the slapstick humour seen in Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World  (1963). Interestingly, the two icons of the aforementioned declining categories met here – in front of the camera, Miki Sugimoto in the paradoxically atypical role of the emotionally tormented sidekick of the protagonist (the supporting role of the sexually unbridled policewoman was played by another familiar face from Jajoi Watanabe’s pinky violence movies) and, behind the camera, Kinji Fukasaku, the formalistic master of fierce and hyper-realistically chaotic yakuza flicks. We now know that the attempt to establish a new commercially lucrative style failed and the film remains a historical curiosity. Besides the simple fact that, given the nature of their lifestyle and their country’s geography, the Japanese are not as fixated on cars as Americans, we can point out the film’s miserable screenplay as its main weakness. The relatively engaging main storyline about a bank robber on the run is intertwined with a parallel comedy storyline about an incompetent cop and, unfortunately, it is also needlessly and very sloppily connected to other storylines of the exploitation narrative involving a dandy from a car repair shop who becomes a victim of the perverted owner of the only powerful car in the whole film. If it weren’t for Fukasaku, whose frenetic style of unbridled camerawork and quick cuts elevates particularly the first half of the film to the level of a breathtaking exercise in cinematic form, the film as a whole would be depressing. Nevertheless, even Fukasaku’s style can’t conceal the fact that the final car chase and pile-up has no choreography and, in comparison with the brilliant bank robbery sequences of the first half, no topography of action. (01/06/2014) (moins) (plus)