Outrage Coda

These movies taught me to play with them. I know now that people betray you no matter how good you are, you only have to be true to yourself and the right person will notice it.

Do what you do well and never let anybody lure you to the wrong side, always someone wants something from you but be sure that it is the right things.

Never let slows minds slow you down.

I reckon if you haven't seen the previous two entries some of the things may not really work for you. As a reviewer stated he thought many things were generic. I highly disagree, especially with the change of location. Now is it as good as the first Outrage? No it isn't, but does it conclude the whole thing in a very satisfying way? You bet it does.

There is a lot of violence but that is to be expected. There is also a lot of crazy connections and intriguing going on. People betraying others, but also some trying to do the honorable thing. Power corrupts ... absolute power corrupts absolutely. Or something along those lines. Also some things seem inevitable, like what goes around comes around. Karma is catching up most of the time - even when it feels not deservedly.

The first Outrage movie was an all-out extremely violent yakuza gang movie, with traces of humor and dialogues. A popcorn movie, but still satisfying to watch.

The second Outrage movie built a more intricate set-up and story, that justified the 2nd half of the film scenes.

The third and final part, Coda, is about the clash between traditional / old-school yakuza versus modern, petulant yakuza.

It's about honor and respect of the code versus greed, constant betrayal and perversity.

The movie features better written dialogues than in the previous two parts, and an interesting take on how modern society might affect yakuza businesses.

Kitano's character, Otomo, follows the traditional code of honor of the yakuza, to the end. It was a beautiful story.

Note that the scenario doesn't actually consider the modern spirit to be negative in all circumstances: Otomo's boss, Chang, is a business man who has embraced modernity, and who does not condone violence.

Kitano delivered an amazing trilogy.

Outrage Coda is a violent but unsatisfying end to the Outrage Trilogy. The main problem is that Takeshi Kitano's Otomo is barely in it and little time is given to his story/motivations. As a result, when he goes on his climatic rampage (that's not a spoiler if you've seen the Outrage films -- He always goes on a rampage), you don't care because the film hasn't built it up properly. The rest of the major characters are all very superficially drawn and equally evil, so it's tough to care about who is doing what to whom during the convoluted schemes. The ending seems like it was supposed to be very moving, but is more likely to leave you going, "huh?"

That said, I strongly recommend you watch this immediately after watching the first 2 films. At the very least, Kitano's character's lingering resentment from those films may carry over and round out his character in this film.

This whole trilogy did not impress me at all. Takeshi performs as good as always and the rest of the cast was good also. But generally, all three movies looked flat to me. I love a ton of shooting and a lot of yelling, but these three movies look like a ton of shooting and yelling, and not much of anything else. I reckon Takeshi wanted to make simply an entertaining film, that would probably be enjoyed by mainly Japanese audiences.

The plot in all three movies is basically the same. Yakuza families trying to rise above other Yakuza families. After each dead, a Yakuza family seeks revenge against another family. All of them plot against each other. That's it.

Looks like Takeshi was bored to think of a more interesting plot. I don't know..Some twists in it maybe could help. Some more of that dark humor present here and there would also help. But unfortunately, the overall taste left on me after watching all three movies, is that there is nothing to remember afterwards. At some point even the background music looks like it is totally out of place.

Regarding positives, the actors who played the Yakuza bosses and underbosses all play their parts well. And there are scenes with subtle black humor that made me laugh genuinely. Lastly, these movies do show the vanity of the gangster universe. Sure you can rise to the highest peak in a crime syndicate, but at the end of the day you are nothing but an expendable tool yourself. And each passing day only brings your downfall closer.

I would keep the best ideas from all three movies and i would think of a better plot for a single movie. Three movies with so many similarities between them, for me this is kind of an overkill.

Not among Takeshi's best.