Le Vagabond de Tokyo

I will argue until my death that TOKYO DRIFTER is superior to BRANDED TO KILL, but that's for another time...

I am amazed every time I see this film that Suzuki could take such an obviously inferior product -- as Nikkatsu Studios was churning out at an obscene rate in those days, giving directors a script and saying "Shoot it fast and cheap so we can give you your next job" -- and turn it into one of the most beautiful and intriguing films I've ever seen.

Best plot ever? No. Easy to follow? Yes. Beautiful? Yes. And that theme...I could never forget that theme if I tried, even after my first viewing.

I'd ramble on about history and plot and so on, but so many others have, I'll just leave it at this: TOKYO DRIFTER makes me happy every time I see it.

In 1966 Nikkatsu, a Japanese studio, requested that one of their more "difficult" directors "calm down" on his next project. The director was Seijun Suzuki. The project was Tokyo Drifter. The result was anything but calm.

A film-noir shot through with moments of brilliant, lurid colour; the film defies all conventions be it genre, style or even something as mundane and unnecessary as narrative. One scene finds Tetsuya Watari's pouting yakuza in a tense showdown with his rival. Standing on train tracks, surrounded by clean, crisp snow the screen is split in two by a clearly visible dark blue line. The use of this visual effect is telling. It adds nothing to the story, to the characterisation, it simply looks good.

The closing sequence has to be seen to be believed. It is best described as the secret lovechild of a Gene Kelly musical and a John Woo action film. Amazing.

If for nothing else, Tokyo Drifter will long be remembered for the theme tune which hauntingly drifts through the entire film.

Sensible logic might be little, but director Suzuki Seijun's surrealistic pop-art gangster feature "Tokyo Drifter" is a tour-de-fore in flamboyant, and unusual film-making. Everything about this fashionably unhinged effort reeks of ultra-coolness, with its edgy but trendy stylish guidance painting an influential pathway for many film-makers to experiment, but also providing familiar staples of noir and western inspirations to its own brash, creative juices. I admit the busily dry story is quite an unbalanced muddle, with fractured editing, but still for that time glamorously unconventional and erratically bewildering. The focus of the material is that of devotion (of business and love), but some quirky sight gags and mayhem make there way in. Mainly it's all about the majestic set-pieces though, and the delirious appeal of them are a wondrously enchanting sight. A trippy colour scheme infuses itself on the psychedelically warped set-designs of moody composition lighting, and the sudden bursts of exaggerated violence have a poetically tough awe surrounding it. The taut pace of the film stays pretty much on cruise control, but where the energy feeds off can be linked to Kaburagi So's fierily dramatic jazz musical score, and Mine Shigeyoshi's intimately snappy cinematography positioning. Even breaking up the murky narrative are odd song choices and a rhythmic theme. The colourful performances are dashing, and life-like with a brooding array of interesting characters. Testsuya Watari, HidekaI Nitani, Ryuji Kita, Chieko Matsubara and Eiji Go are enjoyably tailored to their parts. Highly stylised fun.

If you are fed up by ordinary manufactured campiness, but still have normal levels of humor.. Which is to say if you find Austin Powers not only boring but trivial, you might check this out. It is high camp. It is ridiculous in ways that in other action films we readily accept: think the recent James Bonds. There is a joke product placement — for hair driers — that is really funny.

We have the ordinary sort of thing that qualifies: cheesy songs, goofy hero, posed action, jingly hipness. But we have a level of cheesiness that goes beyond the Tarrantino level, beyond the usual joke. The cinematography is one big joke, one that still works today because the big movies still use Vietnam era visual devices.

We have jokes on Bertralucci, Welles, Kurosawa. Leone of course. We have a couple stagings from Bergman even. It is not worth the effort to single out any Frenchman it seems, treating them with the contempt of wholesale dismissal.

Under ordinary circumstances, I would not recommend this because the usual level of the joke gets pretty tiring after 20-30 minutes. But the cinematic jokes and references keep coming, as though there were a catalogue (like we are told the Coen brothers keep). The blatant vacancy of the visuals is pretty damning.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

'Tokyo Drifter' is one of the coolest movies I have ever seen in my life! It is so cool that you almost think you dreamed it up, but no, someone (the criminally underrated Seijun Suzuki) actually MADE this movie. Storywise it is your standard Yakuza crime thriller, but the approach is totally off the planet, with stylized sets, vibrant cartoonish colours and a naggingly insistent theme song. This movie has gotta be seen to be believed! You MUST see this movie!