Incomprehensible Movies – Tokyo Drifter
Late one night when I was watching television during the recent Olympics, I got bored of the sporting events and started flipping channels. I wanted to watch something that would send me to a good night’s sleep. The lights were out and I was guessing the buttons on my remote and thus my channel surfing was to say the least, a little inconvenient. In this struggle to figure out the correct buttons I did end up on a channel that was showing the movie ‘Tokyo Drifter‘. I didn’t struggle with my remote after that. I did not care how long I was awake that night and stayed up until the end of the movie.
The next morning, I was still thinking about the movie and I wanted to share my discovery with my wife but, I forgot the name of the movie. All I remembered was Tokyo. Well, after some research on all Japanese movies that begin with the name Tokyo, it was easy for me to figure out the one that I saw. Did I know the director Suzuki Seijun? No. Did I know the actors? No. But, I remembered the colours the movie had and looking at the poster on IMDB, my search finished.
From that time onwards, I knew that I was not looking at any ordinary director. This was one director wanting to speak through the medium of cinema in every way possible. I am always at a loss when it comes to talking about Mr. Seijun because I do not know if I can talk about him without taking about his movies. Him and his movies, I believe, are inseparable. I have watched the Tokyo Drifter multiple times but each and every time, I realize that I haven’t seen the movie at all. Each and every time, Mr. Suzuki shows me something that I haven’t seen.
The theme of loyalty and how valuable is blind loyalty, is common to more than one movie of Mr. Seijun. It is central to Tokyo Drifter. A Yakuza boss Kurata decides to quit the criminal life and his loyal gangster Tetsu joins him. Another Yakuza boss Otsuka decides to hire Tetsu, but he firmly refuses as he wishes to be loyal to Kurata. Otsuka in the meantime tries to pressurize Kurata by taking over the loan on Kurata’s legitimate business. Otsuka also has an eye for Tetsu’s girl Chiharu. A sequence of events leads to Tetsu to become a drifter and leaving Tokyo to save his boss. He realizes later that his boss has turned the tables on him and wants to get a deal with Otsuka. How Tetsu gets to know of the betrayal and what he does forms the rest of the movie.
What strikes you immediately is the use of the colours in this entire movie. It begins with a Black and White sequence with a hint of colour here and there. The rest of the movie has a definite colour ‘coding’ to put it simply. The colours not only represent the characters but also the situation and the emotions floating around. Its an amazing experience! Now, that is just one aspect of the movie. There is also the music that runs in the background that plays an equally effective role. Tetsu and Chiharu sing the same song but, the lyrics they sing effectively surmises their needs and ideas.
What you cannot miss in Mr. Seijun’s movie making is his style. Its uber-cool and fantastic! The action sequences have their own aesthetics that is trademark Seijun style. The other noticeable thing is his use of shades on screen. It looks as if someone did not care to remove the cover on the camera lens. It covers some part of the screen and is used for some reason that I haven’t yet figured out. It still bugs me. Anyone who can elaborate more is most welcome to do so.
To get an idea of the conditions under which this movie was made, I quote from Wikipedia below:
His fan base grew rapidly but did not extend to studio president Kyusaku Hori. Beginning with Tattooed Life the studio issued Suzuki his first warning for “going too far”.[15] He responded with Carmen from Kawachi after which he was ordered to “play it straight”[16] and had his budget slashed for his next film.[12] The result was Tokyo Drifter, an “ostensibly routine potboiler” made into a “jaw-dropping, eye-popping fantasia”.[17] Further reduced to filming in black-and-white Suzuki made his 40th film in his 12 years with the company, Branded to Kill (1967), considered an avant-garde masterpiece by critics, for which Hori promptly fired him
The reason that was given for firing him was this:
“Suzuki’s films were incomprehensible, that they did not make any money and that Suzuki might as well give up his career as a director as he would not be making films for any other companies.”
Incomprehensible movies! He was blacklisted for 10 years before he could make another motion picture. He came back with his acclaimed trilogy Zigeunerweisen (1980), Kagero-za (1981) and Yumeji (1991).
This post is part of a series of articles on his movies that I shall be sharing with you all here at PFC. I am sure there are people who know a lot more than I do and I wish to hear from them too. In this small way, I hope to pay my tributes to one of the lesser known masters of world cinema. I hope you get to see his movies and enjoy them as much as I have.
Tags: Incomprehensible movies, Japanese Cinema, My Favourites, Suzuki Seijun, Tokyo Nagaremono, World Cinema
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
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Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
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Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
well let’s not call it ‘incomprehensible’. Suzuki’s idea of cinema is a spontaneous visual free-for-all. The cinematic equivalent to stream-of-consciousness. In France they called it ;new Wave’ what not. Suzuki was just plain riffing it! Great guy, love him. Haven’t seen ‘Tokyo Drifter’ but ‘Branded to Kill’ is a fav. and ‘Youth of teh Beast; is movie having a nervous attack. iT’S BANG BANG BANG CRASH BANG and it never looked more beautiful, more enigmatic on screen. Suzuki drugged up the medium itself. he was a master by default. You don’t need a theory for this guy.
and Joe Shishido kicks ass! Let that be heard.
@sid
The reason I put incomprehensible was as a tribute to this great master from me and not because I found it incomprehensible myself… if it makes any sense…
If you haven’t seen Tokyo Drifter don’t miss it… Love Branded to Kill as well… needs a whole new post on that one..
and I agree
Joe Shishido does kick ass…..
LOL:-)
A Post for Branded to Kill then
i love suzuki.. period.. and i agree with sid, he was a master by default.. nevertheless a master..
@Anurag
thanks for checking out this post
“i love suzuki.. period.”..
That was all I could write about him for a very long time.. it is a tough job (for me) to write an experience with Suzuki’s movies on paper..
Contrasting this and Branded to Kill to A Prostitute’s Story, you can see the range and the versatility he has. And for talk of colour, he is exceptional with Black and White….One can go on and on about him…