After having such a horrible horrible time watching Takeshi Kitano's 'Glory to the Filmmaker!' a few weeks earlier,  I was almost afraid to get the DVD for his newer movie, 2010's 'Outrage', which marks his return to the straight up gangster genre.


I'm glad I took a chance on this film.  I quite liked it.   Like many of his movies, Kitano directs and plays one of the lead characters in this ensemble piece. 

The plot focuses on the inner struggles within a yakuza organization as rival bosses cross and double cross each other out of greed, ambition and revenge.  Definitely not for the faint of heart, but I would say you could look at this as a Japanese equivalent of  'The Godfather'…..  …well maybe not quite so epic…. maybe more like 'Goodfellas' or 'The Departed'.       It reminds me of a Scorsese film in that its actually educational as well as entertaining,  providing a lot of insight into how the Yakuza operates in Japan. (I'll have to keep my eye open for guys in black cars wearing tacky suits…)
As you can imagine,  in the rough and tumble world of Yakuza gang wars,  a lot of the violence is quite graphic… but just shooting or stabbing your victims wouldn't send a strong enough message, so in this film people get rubbed out in a variety of horrifying ways…  

I read on wikipedia that Kitano came up with the list of  horrific ways to kill someone and then came up with a story with scenes to fit them all in….   I wonder how that writers meeting went down…. "ok, ok,  let's try killing someone with a dental drill…..  ok now, how do we figure out how to get this into our plot?"

I had to look away during many of the graphic scenes, but overall I found the film quite good.  A strong 8/10 from me on this one.  Check it out if you're into gangster flicks!

Wanchai edition!

It's 20 degrees C in HK today.... I'm on my way to the airport right now. the temp in Beijing right now is -6 C.  oh joy! :-P



Can't wait for winter to be done!

I need to go back and read the wikipedia on this one… I am a fan of some of Takeshi Kitano's films so when I saw this one on sale cheap in a HK video store, I picked it up.  I don't know how to describe it better than to just say its a Takeshi Kitano brainfart…  a bunch of self-referential random shit thrown together… (a movie about what kind of movie he needs to make to get out of the shadow of his previous films' success…   mission accomplished!)


Very bizarre.  There are some funny scenes and entertaining vignettes included,  but don't try to keep up with the plot, if there is one.  I'm sure there's a lot of reference to the Japanese film industry that I missed.  I liked his 1995 film 'Getting Any?' which was also a bunch of random scenes put together....  but this one just didn't do it for me.  I can only recommend it if you're a big fan of his work already and want to see this for completeness.  3/10.

Welcoming our Maple Syrup producing neighbors to the final frontier: