Sonatine

Sonatine tells the story of middle aged yakuza boss Murakawa (played by Kitano) and his gang's trip to Okinawa to settle some yakuza wars and return the peace to the criminal underworld of Japan. Murakawa openly suspects that the assignment is attempt to have him removed and even beats up one of his colleagues.    There are all the Kitano elements as beautifully present as possible. The scenes are often  without too much dialogue , and the film is very symbolical and calm.  The faces are among the most important elements in Kitano's  films as there are so many things to be read from character's faces. Takeshi delivers a perfectly-measured performance  as the man who wants out , but retains the strength to recognise that circumstances and obligations will never allow it.  When violence is shown in this film , it is usually portrayed in the director's signature style , erupting suddenly amid absolute stillness in a spasm that is over almost before it begins. Sonatine is a lyrical picture of Japan's poker face toward the outrageous violence of its mob culture. The film's title is a musical term that refers to a sonata of modest length ,however not diminished in complexity.

Autoreiji (Outrage)

Outrage is a 2010 Japanese Yakuza film directed by and starring Takeshi Kitano.  Kitano's Outrage exists in an effort to explore the various amounts of violence that can be dispensed in the midst of a Yakuza turf war in the Japanese underworld.  The complex plot stars Kitano as Otomo , a mid level mob boss. Otomo's direct loyalties lie with Ikemoto, his gangster-father , an aging gang leader who has formed a formal pact with Murase.  This pact has raised the ire of the overall Yakuza Chairman, the highest ranking gangster of them all to whom Ikemoto must answer.  The Chairman claims his displeasure comes from the shame of associating with Murase's drug business but it is equally likely that he simply doesn't like these two powerful men creating an alliance that could threaten his own power.   Payback and revenge become the order of the day and the control of Ikemoto and Murase's territory is up for grabs and several of the players involved have their eyes on it.  As Kitano remarked publicly about his making  of Outrage , he is giving the people what they want - no pretense of artistic embellishments, but rather blunt , cruel acts of violence of  the professional criminal  devoid of  any romanticism.  Despite the plot complexity , Kitano  directs one of his most direct and most violent pictures here.

Gewalt! Gewalt: shojo geba-geba ( Violent Virgin )

A bunch of young hipsters kidnaps a loving couple and keeps them trapped in a barren landscape. To the sounds of  free jazz they are performing various instruments with the couple.  Yet, as the film progresses the characters appear to be more like symbols acting out relationships in an allegory rather than part of a narrative. The central male character , played by Atushi Yamatoya ,goes from kidnapped victim ,to escapee ,to killer , to demon and then to oppressor himself.  Here both male and female characters go through a range of experiences of erotic pleasure , physical restraint and humiliation.  The women characters are seen to be as sexually and violently charged as their male counterparts.  Wakamatsu used the format of  sexploitation as a way into an exploration of other transgressive acts such as extreme violence and amorality.

Gozu

Gozu is more of a surreal character study in the tradition of David Lynch than a true horror film.  Mike takes great delight in introducing what seems like a normal action film or a horror film , then suddenly twisting it into something new.  A driver named Minami (Hideki Sone) is out with his Yakuza boss , his "aniki" (brother ) Ozaki . To protect an innocent woman , Minami accidentally kills Ozaki.  While trying to figure out what to do with the corpse , then trying to find a phone that works,Ozaki's corpse disappears.  Now it's upto Minami to find him while dealing with encounters with all sorts of bizzare people and situations as he tries to do so.   Minami begins looking for the corpse with the help of a strange man whose face is half-painted white. Other,increasingly bizzare characters come into the mix , and the story gets weirder and weirder.  More than a parade of distorted and strange characters , Gozu's descent into the grotesque is above all the manifestation of protagonist's confusion.  As the film progresses , we as viewers get to know about Minami's personality ,in particular his insecurity about his sexual identity and his devotion to Ozaki. As with many of Mike's films, Gozu follows no singular genre or style ; moving freely between the characteristics of illogical comedy , gritty Yakuza thriller , unrequited romance and psychological horror story seemingly simultaneously.

Sukiyaki Western Django

Sukiyaki Western Django is not the first  Japanese western.   It is a feast for genre fetishists, a loving and lurid pastiche of the Spaghetti westerns that were themselves lurid pastiches of classic Hollywood cowboy pictures. The title of this western refers to the Japanese dish Sukiyaki , as well as Sergio Corbucci's Spaghetti western film Django. The film contains numerous references both to the historical Genpei war and to wars of the roses, as well as the films Yojimbo and Django. The story deals with a bitter rivalry between two vicious clans- the brutal Heike and the flashy Genji.  They have taken over a remote mountain village in a region oddly called "Nevada".  A mysterious gun fighter with no name (Ito Hideaki) rides into town and offers his services to the clan who offers to pay him the most. While both clans make interesting bids, the gun fighter rejects both offers and is instead swayed to hold off joining either faction by the town's salon madam , Ruriko. She tells the stranger of how  the town was taken over by the clans and how her son , Akira was killed by them. The film was made with a fairly high budget , and it shows. Both set and costume design are awesome. The town is a perfect fusion of the classical western town and medieval Japanese architecture,Buddhist temples alternating with the saloon, the sheriff's office and dilapidated stanles. Sukiyaki Western Django is a feast for the eye ; even the much criticized flashbacks , soaked in oversaturated yellow and  green tints , seem to work in its advantage.

Taiji ga mitsuryô suru toki (The Embryo Hunts In Secret)

The Embryo Hunts in Secret , is the first film made by Japanese director Koji  Wakamatsu  independently of any film studio.  A pioneer of  pinku cinema,  his work is subversive and universally applicable but without the tastelessness of  the genre's worst contributors. 
The entire film takes place in the protagonist's claustrophobic  apartment ;  the  reclusivity of the protagonist's plight is now to be shared with the audience.  A man keeps his girlfriend tied up in his small apartment  and tortures her.  As the story goes we are subjected to watching this man degrade and abuse the woman -he relentlessly flogs her with a bull whip, makes her crawl around on all fours and beg for food like an animal , repeatedly holds her head under water  and slices her up with a straight-razor , all the while laughing with sadistic glee.  All the while still recounting his family relationship , his oedipal relationship with his mother , and his estranged relationship with his wife , all at the cost of his utter rejection of a child.  He cannot live without controlling every aspect of his own life as well- including  the lives of others he's in contact with.  Throughout the film, there are images superimposed over scenes happening in reality.  Wakamatsu refuses to refashion the man into a monster,  providing instead  a purely pathological portrait of rank misogyny's  desperate efforts to contain what taunts it.

Brother

At the time of its  release, Brother was hyped  as Kitano's vehicle for breaking into the United States film market.  Mostly , the film is a  successful  transposition of his trademark  melancholic violence,  playful humour and brutal editing,  and in this respect Kitano maintains an artistic and thematic continuity with his earlier films.  Kitano plays a Yakuza gangster who is exiled to the United States.  He has his half  brother living there so he has a place to live in.  Soon he starts to have new friends and become a leader of their new gang.   Kitano gives full shrift to examining the Yakuza sub-culture with  its codes of chivalry, obligation, loyalty, obedience and brotherhood.  Members of a Yakuza clan maintain a fanatical loyalty to their anikis  within the gang with a willingness to put  one's life on the line.   The violence is very brutal and challenging  but definitely not gratuitous or exploitative.  His violence is  always very symbolic and sudden, and not necessarily realistic.  This film contains all the element which we have seen in his other films-flashbacks of events,  long shots without editing, characters faces which say so many things more than words.

Kuroi ame (Black Rain)

Based on a novel by Masuji Ibuse who gathered information from interviews and the diaries of real-life bomb victims , the film depicts how an entire family is affected psychologically as well as physically by the bomb years after the original explosion. The film begins in  Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 as soldiers and civilians go about their normal daily activities. Suddenly a blinding light flashes and a thunderous blast is heard.  The story centers around  Yasuko (Yoshiko Tanaka) , a young woman who is caught in the radioactive rain as her boat head backs to the city to search for friends and relatives.   When the family returns to their home,  her life is forever changed.  When her aunt and uncle try to find her a husband,  the eligible men refuses to marry her  because of suspicions about her health,  even though her uncle has copied her diary to prove that she wasn't directly exposed to the bomb. She only feels comfortable with another damaged man Yuichi ,  who has a panic attack every time he hears the roar of an engine.  The film is clearly designed as a memorial to the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for a world too quick to forget.  Perceiving the need to remind his country of the truth of the atomic horror, the normally confrontational director shows notable restraint here.  This is one of the reasons why this film, despite being brilliant , is not among my favourites.

Yuke yuke nidome no shojo (Go,Go Second Time Virgin)

Wakamatsu's Go, Go Second Time Virgin tells the tale of two Japanese teens brought together by sexual violence., revenge and rebellion.  Poppo, a teenage girl is raped by four boys on the roof of a seven-story apartment building.   She asks them to kill her , but they mock her and leave.  Tsukio, a teenage boy has been watching the rape passively. The story revolves around both characters befriendment and subsequent attempts to deal with their traumatic past and present. 

Poppo had an incredibly dysfunctional past which includes the gang-rape of her mother leading to Poppo's conception, incest , the suicide of her father with his mistress, the subsequent suicide of her mother out of loneliness and two rapes.  She is nihilistic and consistently reiterates her desire to die.  In a colour flashback, Tsukio tells of his own recent sexual abuse at the hands his parents and another couple, all of whome he has stabbed to death. Poppo repeatedly asks Tsukio to kill her, but he refuses.  Tsukio initially looks on with some adolescent excitement,  his hatred for the abusers grow throughout the film until his rage explodes in final scenes. On the surface, the audience will be in for a great deal of sex ,violence and drug-induced bizarreness. Stylistically,  the entire film is shot in black and white and takes place within the confines of the apartment building, either on the roof, in the basement, or in the bloodied apartment of Tsukio's attackers. 

 It is a rather dismal tale of primitive morality in the face of degradation, humiliation and abuse. It would seem that this film's  message is one of the consequence of a moral decline within society and the irreparable damage it causes among innocent youth. This decline explicitly involves the pursuit of unfettered and often violent sexuality as well as drug and alcohol abuse .

Sono otoko, kyôbô ni tsuki ( Violent Cop)

Kitano's nihilistic 1989 directorial debut is one of the rawest, most uncompromising films ever made,  and, at the same time, arguably one of the most promising debut films ever delivered.  This film bears some resemblance to Dirty Harry but here the lead character is bit psychotic as well. The plot is nothing new but the stylised and arranged presentation made this film so great.

Kitano plays sociopathic detective Azuma,whose single-mindedness leads him to self-destruction. After the suicide of his cop friend Iwaki (who was involved with drugs too) , Azuma breaks all the rules of ethical conduct. Unlike Kitano's other films for which Kitano himself wrote the stories, this is an adaptation of a novel by  Hiashi Nozawa. Kitano's work, however, is ingenious, as screenwriter, director and leading man of this film.  Violent Cop" is greatly shot and accompanied by an insanely brilliant score. Kitano's use of music in his films is another part of his brilliance.

Hana-bi (Fireworks)

Kitano who directed it, also stars as Nishi, a man whose only two emotional states are anguish and enchantment.  His wife suffers from some extremely lethal disease which has taken her speech,too. She is going to die soon and Nishi wants to make his wife's last weeks as enjoyable and nice as possible. His partner Horibe is shot and paralyzed for the rest of his life during one shoot out.  In the meantime, Nishi is forced to deal with Yazuka in order to get some money for his wife's medical care . That leads ofcourse to troubles with the gangsters as he isn't able to pay back his loans.  Meanwhile Horibe remains busy with his paintings.  The shoot out flashback is one memorable sequence in this film, and it is in its slow motion one of the most beautiful, yet horrifying depictions of violence ever possible.

The film is almost unbearably sad and emotional , and its most tragic character is Horibe, the partner who is paralyzed and totally abandoned by his wife and children after the accident. Nishi spends time with his wife.  They do childish things together , such as playing with the kite of a girl they meet on the beach. But when a stranger laughs at his wife ,  Nishi brutally beats him.  He is a caring man.  He is happy when the world leaves him alone and when it doesn't, he strikes back.  It's a quiet film yet strong and deep, filled with human weaknesses and vulnerable situations. There are little mutual gestures between them -so much is expressed silently.
                
This film doesn't glorify violence or present it as an important tool ; it analyzes violence and shows many aspects of it.  Kitano is excellent as Nishi.  At times, he is tough and very unforgiving man while at other times he is a man totally lost in a world of sorrow and pity.
               

The Insect woman (Nippon konchuki)

Imamura was deeply concerned with the nature of what it means to be Japanese and he went about exploring that question by digging beneath the surface of Japanese Society to disclose a wellspring of sensual, often irrational, energy that lies beneath.

It tells the difficult life of Tome Matsuki (Sachiko Hidari) ,someone who doesn't know her real father, whose struggle for survival is compared to an ant. It begins in 1918 and covers 45 years of Tome's life, a time both she and the country undergo profound changes. Tome is molested from childhood by her stepfather Chuji. Her mom mocks the morally ignorant Tome for sleeping with her stepfather. As a young woman, she moves from her rural village to find work in a factory ,where she engages in an affair with her boss.  She works later as a maid and then as a prostitute.

She survives decades of Japanese social upheaval, as well as abuse and subjugation at the hands of various men. Yet the director , refuses to make a victim of her ,instead observing Tome as a fascinating , pragmatic creature of post-war Japan. The title refers to the way an insect's behavior is determined simply by the need for survival, acting by instinct alone and unaffected by love or moral . The personal problems of her are related to Japan's problems in the modern world and of the shame of losing the war and becoming dependent on America to get back on it's feet. At the end of the film, her grandchild is about to be born to the same circumstances as she was, thus the cycle continues itself to another generation.

Akai Satsui (Intentions of Murder)

Imamura's 1964 black and white drama Akai Satsui is a great example of his cold style. The 150 min of runtime allow the director to establish a controlled and ambitious fiction where nothing is easily dismissed or fully interpreted.

The plot deals with a middle-class housewife Sadako (Masumi Harukawa) who lives with her librarian husband Richi and his young son Masaru. After she is raped by a burglar Hiraoko while being at home alone, she cannot even think about letting others know about the incident and initially intends to kill herself, but later drops the idea because of her love to Masaru.  Sadako is treated badly by virtually everyone ,especially her mother-in-law and even Richi.  Richi is also having an affair with a co-worker for a decade. Sadako's behaviour grows increasingly difficult to understand for the remainder of the film. Her rapist transitions into a stalker, an admirer, and, finally, a lover. Her past is so full of psychological mistreatment by her in-laws that it doesn't feel bad to think that to her, rape is not worse than her life as it is. Still Sadako is able to stay strong throughout her trials. 

The black and white cinematography, stark shadows, wonderful scenery and the planned  mise-en-scene make the frames of the film very interesting . The pacing always stays unhurried, making the film long but never tedious. The lead character is an unhappy,unappreciated woman who is dragged through conflict only to emerge with complicated,specific victory. The director has something deeper than shock effects in mind. His theme is natural instinct versus social convention, and his approach is original. However, it puts forward a strangely subversive view of "modern" Japan.  

Erogotoshi-tachi yori: Jinruigaku nyûmon (The Pornographers )

Shohei Imamura is known for making films of a provocative nature.  He used to work as an assistant of the great  Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu.  Imamura, in his own right, quickly bcame a  creative filmmaker in Japan's post-war era.

Subu is a maker of pornographic films. He is a boarder at the home of the widowed Haru Matsuda . She lives with her two teenage children there.  She provides for her children through renting out the room to Subu.  Her son Koichi isn't interested in attending college while her daughter Keiko gets attracted towards Subu.  Haru keeps a large carp in a fish tank in their bedroom.  She thinks that the fish is the reincarnation of her former husband. She believes that her husband is annoyed that she has not remained a widow. Haru becomes increasingly ill and eventually loses her mind.  In the meantime, Subu finds himself becoming fascinated with Keiko.
 
Later Keiko regrets about their relationship. Her regret leads her into self-destructive behavior including drinking and unhealthy adventures with boys. As the story progresses, Subu has a difficult time making a living through pornography. The Pornographers is about the misadventures of Subu and his efforts to find happiness in life.

To adjust its serious themes,  Imamura often includes dark humour, like the idea of passing of a prostitute  with child as a "virgin" to satisfy the sexual needs of a businessman. His cinematography highlights the voyeuristic nature of " The Pornographers". The subject matter proves to be truly powerful, as he explores with underside of Japanese society and deals with taboo sexual matters.  Imamura is not as famous in western cultures as some of his  contemporaries, but his films were at the cutting edge for their time.  The film represents the director near the height of his creativity.

Vengeance is Mine (Fukushû suru wa ware ni ari )

Shohei Imamura's interests as a filmmaker were mainly focused on the lower section of Japanese society. Vengeance Is Mine is a 1979 film directed by him.  The film was inspired from a true story of a serial killer.

Iwao Enokizu is a middle aged man who loves to commit insane and violent murders.The film starts with the capture of the killer Iwao Enokizu (Ken Ogata). In the first sequence, we see him in the back seat of a police car, after his capture .  He sings in the police car, assumes on the date of his hanging. The narrative structure of the film is non-sequential, it switches between killer’s interrogation by the police and the reenactment of the actions leading up to each murder.  If we try to understand the reasons behind his murders, then this film offers a few.   Vengeance is about an almost undefinable evil that seems to have no remorse . The story goes way back to when he was a child. We see him hating his father for being weak in standing up against oppressors (in truth ,there is a little he can actually do). His father is also a religious hypocrite. His father develops a relationship with his son's wife Kazuko. It seemed like his father was Iwao's most hated person on earth. 

Elaborating through several flashbacks,  Ogata delivers an excellent performance as a killer. Ogata handles the role with natural charm and great confidence.  The flashback here is not straightforward, shifting back and forth sequentially and circling around these murders. The style of this film has an effortless minimalism and sense of dilemma.

There are no easy answers behind the murders committed by Iwao. For the most part, his crimes seem to have no powerful motive at all but if u think deeply, u can discover some reasons. There are apparent ideas of family, with the complicated relationship between husband and wife, father and son, mother and son all driving him to commit these crimes. The cultural and spiritual taboos of the post-war Japan are also themes in this film. Vengeance is  Mine is a bold and disturbing work that forces the audiences to ask some serious questions.