DaViD´82

The game of games. A meeting of bosses and professional card players that takes its name from the Yakuza. A game involving betting, where other things are much more important than just a few thousand yen on the table. All this with an atmosphere of scorching heat waves and plans for personal revenge. Gosha found his way into the world of professional Yakuza gamblers and, as he tends to, he filmed a fascinating insight “behind the scenes" (the formal introductions and training how to draw a card without visible muscle reaction are the most powerful). The disadvantage for someone less familiar with the game are the games themselves, where you are fully aware of the tense atmosphere, but without knowing the rules, it’s hard to enjoy the game to the full. It’s like watching a movie about poker without knowing anything about it. You can, but it’s a bit heavy. A much more fundamental fault comes up during the spectacular Lady Snowblood style finale which in itself is outstanding, but in the context of a movie full of intrigue, unspoken threats and silence before the storm, it’s just wrong here. It’s like Schwarzenegger just walked in. Especially when it leads to a rather empty and unsatisfying ending.

I wouldn’t say that Gosha’s dernier is atypical in terms of his other movies. On the contrary, it’s a continuation of themes that interested him toward the end of his career. But this time he moved from stories of women from the red light district to bored, middleclass housewives. It certainly isn’t a crime movie; more a psychological thumbnail sketch of the dark side of social conventions of an austere society. And material obviously originating from the stage that is all the world. However, Gosha’s masterful directing cannot be subdued even in a toned-down interior picture. And we don’t have to go far to find an example of this; the introductory, one-shot scene at the scene of the crime proves this, setting the atmosphere, raising questions and an in-passing introduction to the work of an 18th medical examiner.

I was regretting for the entire movie that I hadn’t seen this at the right age, as a boy, because back then I would have loved this dumbly entertaining, straightforward mix of incongruous elements (wuxia samurais, fencing with katanas, the magnificent seven versus thousands of soldier sword-fodder, such bad to absolutely perfect over-acting from the shogun, the detailed gore, dislocated cuts during the action, to absurdly overdone sound effects, a burning and exploding horse, almost non-stop slow motion and repeats etc.). Anyway, now however hard I try, I just can’t get over some of this; particularly the crazy scene where, completely unexpectedly (and certainly uninvited), the craziest ear-splitting eighties Japanese pop-metal starts blaring, refusing to stop for like a whole ten minutes. And if all of this sounds to you like ideal material for a lifetime guilty pleasure love affair, you are absolutely right. But only if you see it first time when you are still fourteen at latest.

The large Yoshiwara district of Edo/Tokyo, which gave a completely new (and absolutely legal) meaning to the term red light district for almost three centuries. This self-sufficient town surrounded by walls with a magnificent entry portal, a gateway to hell for girls or, conversely, to paradise (of venereal diseases) for countless hordes of males. A place with its own police and a place hit by catastrophe (fires, earthquakes). So, logically, it’s also a place with no shortage of powerful stories and so a theme that, in his eighties “geisha" period, he simply had to film. And he did right, because whether you are interested in the day-to-day routine and behind-the-scenes of a posh brothel at the beginning of the twentieth century (recruitment, taming and training girls, hierarchy, morning prayers, “marketing", tricking clients, abortions etc.) or are “merely" seeking powerful stories about people, then you’re in the right place. You can’t really expect Gosha to put on rose-tinted glasses (on the contrary, he has spent his career tearing them off) and so despite the “picturesque" images, he gives us a very chilling insight into the fates of geishas for whom hope no longer exists and whom their environment shapes into an image of itself.

The first of three novels by Tomiko Miyao that Gosha adapted in the eighties. This historical fresco covering around twenty years offers an unusual glance behind the scenes of day-to-day life of “one big happy family" of a peculiar, self-centered Yakuza boss who likes to think of himself as a successor of the samurai tradition and his eventful struggle for a place in the sun against other clans, economic crisis, the changing times and his own family. It could easily have been titled Once Upon a Time in Japan, because if Gosha is (quite rightly and aptly) referred to as the Japanese Sergio Leone, this is his answer to Once Upon a Time in America. The only fault I can find is the length; it’s too short and often you can see that they had to cut it a lot; basically, the fates of all characters apart from the central duo Matsué/Onimasa are terribly short-hand and that is a crying shame. P.S.: Dog-lovers may have trouble stomaching the scene with the (un)symbolic dog fight; that certainly wouldn’t get Humane Society approval.

It would never have occurred to me that Gosha’s first movie hiccup would happen with such a rewarding theme as the famous adventures of Tange Sazen. Who cares that Gosha doesn’t give a damn about artistic ambition and that he filmed this one-watch nonsense? As he proved in the series about Kiba, he’s suits him really well. But several factors came together here that bring it down to the level of routine. On the one hand, stylization of the main character which is with all due respect ridiculous. Then there’s the story which, despite dealing with the director’s usual topics, is terribly slap-dash and it’s only purpose is to move the movie along to another “Tange versus countless ninjas" scene. And this is all highlighted by the fact that visually this is Gosha’s most interesting movie. As if he became so intoxicated by the pure presence of color that he completely ignores any attempt at visual ingenuity and precision that is otherwise so characteristic of him. The result is a dime-a-dozen, run-of-the-mill chanbara genre movie.

The two frenemies, prostitutes (one of whom is a fancy geisha and the other one a not-so-fancy hooker), are connected through the character of a good-natured pimp (at that time at war with the Osaka Yakuza), father of the first one and lover of the second. Gosha traditionally calls a spade a spade and won’t spend any time sweet talking about how being a geisha is a respectable craft with virtuous qualities. Quite the opposite, his view into the behind the scenes of the "Geisha Factory" in the city of Kōchi, where girls are given, sold or where they flee to when in debt and where nothing awaits them other than hard work, abortions, unfulfilled ambitions, abortions, waiting for Prince Charming, abortions, rivalry, abortions and, last but not least, a few more abortions is equally as tragically rigid as it is fascinating; thanks to the author of the source novel, Tomiko Miyao, whose family made a living by providing livelihood for none other than geishas and prostitutes.

A hint of Nesbø’s absurd dark Headhunters - esque style humor shines through, but that’s about it. It’s one of those movies which are easier to talk about than to watch. What’s to blame is the adaptation, a huge amount of scenes are iconic on paper but the adaptation itself is weak and flavorless. And the only successfully executed thing is the “one to one" stolen from somewhere else. What’s most interesting about the end result is that in Headhunters, the main protagonist resembled a Norwegian Walken and here he resembles a Norwegian Buscemi. And the cop neighbor is reading Nesbø’s “Leopard" in the original language. Although I wouldn’t expect any less from a Norwegian.

Japanese Noir, still a Noir. Even despite its own particularities; for example, despite all the cynicism and pragmatism, at times it’s almost inappropriately melodramatic. Nevertheless, the story is (at first) surprising, the characters are ambiguous and it’s visually polished and beautiful in that classic "Gosha" way.

Considerably less spaghetti (apart from the music) than the first Gosha movie about Kiba, this time it’s almost an orthodox chanbara. Where they relied on building a restless atmosphere of the silence before the storm in the first movie, here they opt for frequent action. Last time, it was slowed down to great effect, with very few actors, whereas here it’s frenetic and takes place amongst crowds, almost. Where Kiba was the protagonist and held the reins firmly in his hands, this time he is driven by events and by Magobei. If it weren’t for the main protagonist (and the switched guard due to the hand injury in the final duel), it would be really hard to tell that this is a sequel. Good, nonetheless, but different from the first time. In the end it’s all about which one of the sequels tickles your fancy, and not about which one is better/worse. In any case it’s a great shame that Gosha stopped filming in black and white with this movie. Few people had such a feeling for its specifics and advantages as he did. And after all it’s also a shame that Gosha did not make more movies with Rōnin Kiba; I came to like the rascal.