Branded to Kill Comments

Thank you to our presenters for their excellent commentary of the readings.

Please post your comments on Suzuki Seijun’s Branded to Kill (1967) here.  I hope you will have noticed the influence of experimental cinema of the kind we watched last week on Suzuki’s film. What elements of experimental or avantgarde cinema do you see in Branded to Kill? What elements surprised or shocked you the most?

7 Responses to “Branded to Kill Comments”

  1. Peace Park Says:

    Thanks Sharon. During the presentation, I wasn’t feeling that nervous but I just simply couldn’t stop my voice from trembling for some reason.

    Anyways, I thought Branded to Kill was a very interesting film.
    I thought we were watching a typical(? I wouldn’t really know since I haven’t watched much Yakuza films) Yakuza film, but it was nothing like what I was expecting. It felt more like a surrealist film than anything else. (maybe a mixture of surrealism+comedy+ action+psychodrama) The crazy editing that quickly jumped from image to image and all the weird images of dead butterflies and birds, everything was so bizarre and dreamlike. For me, the scarriest part was the close-ups of Misako (she’s just too weird and scary) And one of the most disturbing parts were the taking out the eye balls (I sort of covered my eyes, so I don’t exactly know what happened. Were they real eyeballs? wasn’t it taken out and been slit or something? Does this have any connections to the eyeball slitting of Un Chien Andalou?) Anyways, what I enjoyed most from this film was his obsession or fetish of boiling rice. It was just too funny and ridiculous.

    oh, and this film sort of reminded me of a Korean film titled “No. 3″ that came out in the late 90s. It was a huge hit in Korea and it sort of has similar thematics. (The No.3 guy in a gang tries to become No.1, and he sort of dies at the end) I wonder if it was influenced by this film.

  2. Jason Kiang Says:

    Thanks Sharon haha. I wasn’t really nervous, I just wanted to present things that were not already said by Peace and Josh, so I had to look around on my sheet hahaha. But overall, I find I did great on my presentation =D.

    I agree with Peace on the film being somewhat surrealist, I guess it comes out of the awkwardness of the female characters in the film. The protagonist’s girl friend and Misako both seem very weird to give off a surrealist feel. Kind of tells you something about gender roles in Yakuza films doesn’t it? Branded to Kill was before the state of dependency in men and uprising of female yakuza members , so I had no idea this was how females were depicted in earlier Yakuza films haha, I was really shocked to see that. Misako was rather close to being something of a Yakuza member, but I think during the late 1980s is when female characters began to become very masculine, as reference to the readings of my part of the presentation on Gangster Women. The idea to choose duty (giri) over love/human emotion (ninjo). So it was rather interesting to see Branded to Kill’s female characters. Misako’s character was especially interesting giving off that “emo” feel in her, referenced a lot from characters in animes like “L” from Death Note or “Gaara” from Naruto.

    I agree that the obsession for the boiling rice was rather really hilarious, but I think that it is incorporated in many Yakuza films, the members having weird awkward obsessions for things.

    Btw, if you love comedic yakuza genres, people should definitely take a look at this Japanese Yakuza Drama that was spectacularly hilarious. It depicts a modern day yakuza member that has to go back to graduate high school, its sooo funny. The drama is called My Boss My Hero, it is like my favourite Japanese drama of all time, cause I love Yakuza and I love comedy, and the protagonist character is a tough guy but really funny. You can watch all the drama episodes at http://www.dramacrazy.net/v/japanese-drama/my-boss-my-hero/

  3. Sean Kelly Says:

    I can say that for most of the film, I had a rough idea what was going, while at the same time having no idea what was going on.

    I considered it an avant-guarde gangster film.

  4. Peace Park Says:

    Jason, isn’t “My boss my hero” a remake of a Korean film? Because the plot sounds exactly like a Korean film that was a huge hit in 2001. You should check it out sometime.

  5. Margarita Martinez Says:

    I found the movie a little weird and somewhat dragging at times. I liked Misako since she was very interesting. Also the rice obsession was hilarious. I’m not sure I liked the movie too much, kind of a little too weird for my taste. I also felt like the movie didn’t invoke any feelings in me. I didn’t relate to anything or any characters so the movie did not really pull me in. It was kind of just there, no real meaning behind it. Don’t know just how I saw it.

  6. Kent Dela Pena Says:

    I liked the ending and how it played out as a tragedy would. He went through a journey of insanity to become Number 1. The film had me thinking, after dispatching the assassins at the docks, was his conflict with Number 1 his final obstacle to freedom or did this become an internal struggle? We see him dive into the depths of insanity like a Shakespeare tragedy. In the end, even if he did kill Number 1, lost everything when he shot Misako. I also liked the ambiguous conclusion when he rolls out of the ring. I wondered if he crawled away into his new life or if he just rolled under the ring to die alone.

  7. Percy Larbi Says:

    Last class’s animi was good but to me it looks like there should be more to it. I didn’t find it complete. May ask if for next year you can add Dragon Ball Z. I think its one of Japanese animi that is very well known

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