zillion29

This movie is disappointing on so many levels. Much like the more recent Ratatouille, it seems to be a children's film hijacked and saddled with a slew of themes and environments better suited for octogenarians. Even in 1970, I doubt there were many 5 year olds who ached for jazz-loving bohemian cats in belle epoch Paris. It is immediately apparent that the Disney folks (on their own for the first time since Walt croaked) were lost - it takes almost 8 or 9 minutes for ANYTHING even remotely interesting to a child to occur. A five year old will be ready to leave before the disc has been spinning more than a few minutes. And it never goes anywhere. It never really tugs your heartstrings and instead wallows in this strange slapstick humor that undermines the drama. Perhaps most disappointing is the quality of the animation. It sports a rough look - almost like they just took practice sheets and frantically turned them into cels. You can practically see the pencil lines appearing. Animation-wise, it's God-awful.

This film, despite some thoughtful stuff in the final act, is strangely derivative of Takeshi Kitano (which isn't necessarily a good thing in my book). Much like Sonatine we've got a non-expressive, self-destructive protagonist who does some violent stuff while a repetitive low-rent jazz soundtrack warbles in the background. And the editing is sadistic - watch a guy slip around on ice for 45 seconds straight, watch a guy climb a rooftop ladder for 35 seconds, watch seemingly identical rape scenes, watch seemingly identical heroin usage scenes, and my personal favorite: watch the lead actor scowl into the camera over and over and over, blah blah blah. While there is no doubt that it is a Miike in the final analysis, I find it almost sacrilegious to see him borrowing so blatantly from the hack playbook of Beat Takeshi. He even put him in Izo, for cryin' out loud.