Okita le pourfendeur

This has a similar look to some of the early 70s New York gangster and Blaxploitation flicks, only with an eye for the big moody shadows that wouldn't be out of place in a Carol Reed movie. The acting is pretty good, even when the hero is tired and emotional, and the few characters that are fleshed out are never let down by the script. It's easy to see how Riki Takeuchi and Takashi Miike misspent their youth. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a classic, but it compares very favourably with the the best of its era.

The twang of the jaws harp and the jarring off-key harmonica are a nod in the direction of Ennio Morricone. The hyper realism (and melodrama)is very much of its day. Think of Larry Cohen, Sergio Leone, Roman Polanski, Sergio Corbucci, Sam Fuller, Sam Peckinpah, Don Siegel, and their ilk in the 60s and 70s, and accept that film has always been an international conspiracy by artists with attitude. Audiences may be isolated by language, but filmmakers are interested in the visual aspects, and they don't need translation, only an understanding of technique. Kurosawa and Mishima opened up Japanese cinema to the world, and Japanese film makers responded by drawing influences from the wider world.

This movie takes the technical influences and extrapolates them into the boom years of the Japanese economy. Where's there's money, there's organised crime. The casual unaffiliated street punk was a dying breed in the 70s. It's noticeable that the "punks" don't wear suits. They look more like refugees from the beatnik era, and the jazzy sections of the score (that accompany their drunken good times) seem to be saying that their day is done. Kinji Fukasaku is as deserving of credit as any of the aforementioned masters of pulp. His eye is true, and whenever he has a decent script, he makes a good or a great movie, usually on a tight budget. Who could ask for more?

Outlaw Killer or as it says in the film, Street Mobster, is a bloody violent look into a totally self-destructive renegade street punk that can't ever seem to back down from a fight, no matter how suicidal. Truly a hilarious, incredibly charismatic character. So funny.

The film follows him as he talks about his youth, his incarceraton and picks up with him creating a new gang. Parts are a bit too melodramatic, especially at the end, but the characters are well-crafted and the action sequences are frenetic and fun.

A unique view of yakuza and street punk life in Japan in the early '70s from crazy-guy Fukasaku, the man behind Tora! Tora! Tora! and the fantastic Battle Royale.

Street Mobster is among my favorite yakuza films, and from one of my favorite Japanese directors. This is a great, less-popular Fukasaku film, and it really deserves more attention.

Okita is our "hero", if you can call him that. He's hot-heated, violent, and unapologetic. I can't think of a time in the film where he really shows restraint. He's just such an over-the-top, punk rockin' character who doesn't care about rival gangs or other thugs; he wants to do what he wants, when he wants to. And that's definitely the driving force behind the film, it's explosive nature. It's so unglamorous and filthy at times, and yet you have this sense of a man living his life, maybe not to it's full potential, but having a hell of a lot of fun doing what he's doing. And maybe he's not even enjoying it, everything else is just too conformist for him. He simply doesn't back down. So he really is a hero, a hero to the downtrodden. A counterculture icon, a raging machine.

With it's boisterous protagonist comes a slew of background characters who are really just there to make Okita the centerpiece. Aside from the prostitute that he raped years earlier and now forms a bond with (Whose name I can't even remember!) there are few other noteworthy characters. And that's really okay. When they speak, they speak to get Okita's reaction. If you don't like Okita, then you're probably not going to like the film. Me, I enjoyed this rebellious, non-conformist gangster, yelling and picking fights. It was just so over-the-top and the director clearly embraced the punk style that was emerging at the time of this film's release.

Speaking of release time, I just watched the film again a few minutes ago, and I still can't believe it was made in 1972. I'm sure you've heard it before, but it's way ahead of it's time. It looks 90s-ish to me. The shaky-cam and jump cuts stand out most as then-foreign techniques. Of course, now they've become the norm in films.

So that's my short review. I don't feel that there's a whole lot more ground to cover as Okita is really the main attraction. So if you're looking to kill 87 minutes and consider yourself a fan of exciting cinema, look no further than Street Mobster.

The proud, self-destructive, punk/anti-hero violates national boundaries without compunction in late 60s/early 70s cinema. Here Isamu Okita (Bunta Sugawara), often simply called "Bro", is reminiscent not only of Alex (A Clockwork Orange) but also of Ivan (The Harder They Come), Johnny Boy (Mean Streets) and even of Michel (À bout de soufflé).

'Gendai yakuza: hito-kiri yota' (which, in English, apparently means something like Outlaw Killer or Street Mobster) is a restless, prowling movie that occasionally bursts into hyperkinetic action. Something about the verging-on-ludicrous action scenes gives the viewer almost the same sense of release that Bro and the other punks feel.

Isamu is a punk, a whore-son, born on the margins of post-war society. By virtue of his own courage and propensity for violence he becomes the leader of a street gang and attracts the attention of the more established yakuza crimelords. Most of the drama revolves around the conflict between his pride and his superiors.

'Street Mobster' is very well filmed and has aged well, it's influence on films like 'Fight Club' is palpable.

"Street Mobster" is part of the early 70's crop of Japanese yakuza films that were spearheaded by Kinji Fukasaku, who is once again behind the helm without missing a beat. All the mandatory elements that make a yakuza film work are present: forming and switching of alliances between yakuza families, fistfights, stabbings, a guerilla view of Tokyo, frenetic action sequences, sleaze. But whereas a lesser, more workmanlike director would work these things from a checklist, Fukasaku instills so much energy that even the most rudimentary of things are a pleasure to watch.

Indeed "Street Mobster" is packed full of raw, animalistic energy that more than makes up for the fairly predictable nature of the story. In typical yakuza fashion, yakuza gets out of prison after doing time for a hit, forms a small gang, takes on the bigger families, carnage ensues. It's all part of what makes the genre such pure, unadulterated fun though. However all these typical genre staples take a wildly exhilarating life of their own through Fukasaku's hyperkinetic and gritty style. There's no glamour or glory to be found in Fukasaku's violence: only brutality. Stylization is kept to a bare minimum with lots of hand-held shots and cameras constantly on the move that blend in with the action. The same guerilla tactics are used for the exterior shots that capture the seedy, downtrodden side of a Tokyo full of possibilities. Dilapidated warehouses, cheap bath houses, dark rooms, dim-lit diners, rundown neighborhoods with wooden cabins, again there's no glitz or neon lights shining in Fukasaku's yakuza universe.

Regular collaborator Bunta Sugawara takes on the role of the titular Street Mobster, but gone is his cool (and sullen) demeanor from other yakuza films. He's responsible for some serious scenery consumption, wildly overacting, often approaching even Kikuchiyo territory (Mifune's character from Seven Samurai) but with the same honest, natural approach that made him the great actor that he was. He's also one of the best physical actors I've seen and you can see it paying off in dividends with every fight scene he gets involved with (and there are lots, don't worry).

If you'd like to see a different kind of gangster film, one that relies more on viscera, grittiness and raw energy than faux glamour and hip mafiosos, you should definitely invest in Street Mobster. It's pulpy, fast-paced and balls-out. 70's Japanese action cinema in top form