Massacre Gun

                       
Director: Yasuharu Hasebe
Year: 1967
Rating: 6.0
"You know where she lives?". "Kill her". Orders from Boss Akazawa (Takashi Kanda) to his hitman and protégé Kuroda (Jô Shishido). Trouble is Kuroda is in love with her and she with him. She left Akazawa for him putting her life on the line. He has plane tickets to leave. He goes to her apartment and she looks at him with relief. They get into a car and drive away. When he stops on the highway, the look on her face says she knows what is coming. And it does. Love is fine but your obligation to your boss is a higher calling. But one thing even tops that. Blood. Family. And when Akazawa breaks the hands of Kuroda's brother Saburo (Jirô Okazaki) who has a promising boxing career, it is all bets and loyalties off.



Director Yasuharu Hasebe was coming off his brilliant debut, Black Tight Killers, when he made this for Nikkatsu. A few months earlier Seijun Suzuki had released his controversial Branded to Kill starring Jô Shishido and one can't help but wonder if it influences this film. Trying to take the Yakuza film in new directions away from the Chivalrous ones of the past. Certainly, Ken Takakura would not have killed his girlfriend! While Black Tight Killers was a blast of exhilarating pop with colors swamping the screen, this is a moody fatalistic piece shot in black and white with melancholy jazz constantly streaming underneath it. It all plays out in the shadows or darkness with hardly a scene filmed out in the bright of day. Even the two action set pieces are shot in near darkness. These are creatures who live in the darkness or interiors - clubs, pool halls, boxing gyms and bowling alleys. They are Yakuza. This is their life. That is where the killings take place.




But Yasuharu indulges too much in creating the mood and style and allows the narrative to move in slow motion - crawling along towards its inevitable showdown. At times it felt like Hamlet unable to just do what has to be done. There is never any real urgency to it. You keep wanting to tell them to move it along but it becomes a game of tit for tat where tat is death. Kuroda and his two brothers Saburo and the hotheaded Eiji (Tatsuya Fuji) decide to challenge Akazawa for his businesses. It seems simple enough - you go around to Akazawa's various places and drop bowling balls on feet or make threats and tell them this is now theirs. Not so simple. There are only three of them. Three is not a gang. It is wishful thinking. Akazawa has dozens of men and one of them is Shirasaka ( Hideaki Nitani) blood brother and long time friends with Kuroda. They are being drawn towards one another like deadly magnets.



A little too slow, dark and arty for my taste for a Yakuza film. In some films Shishido can be fascinating to watch in his acting style but he is very muted here and nearly expressionless all the way through. There are a few absurd scenes and I wasn't sure if they were meant to be absurd - as when one character gets shot and does Bonny and Clyde on steroids - or just for stylistic intent. The main thing though is I never felt emotionally involved with the characters - they are just ciphers filling out their roles.