Day 6 - Tokyo Drifter

Tokyo Drifter (1966) directed by Seijun Suzuki

In case you've been wondering how I've been picking which movies to watch, I've sort of been randomly picking them on hulu.com. They have a ton of the Criterion collection on the site available for streaming and I'd highly recommend checking them out. They're not for everyone as many of them are arthouse type movies that aren't easily accessible. Many of them can be pretty confusing, while others are just downright dull. Oh, you also have to be able to handle subtitles. Still, quite frequently, you'll find high quality titles from across the globe.


I've heard of Tokyo Drifter before, but didn't know much about it. After reading the description of being a highly stylized yakuza action flick and running at just 83 minutes long, I threw it on. (Length of movie can be a pretty important factor when dealing with obscure foreign language movies you've never heard of. Nothing is more daunting than dealing with two and a half hours of long tracking shots of someone walking through a park philosophizing in Swedish. Also, after waking up at 6:30 pm after a long grueling poker session, I figured I wouldn't have the time or energy for the four hour grandioseness of Gone with the Wind.)


The Kurata group has gone legit, making investments in real estate and cutting ties with their old yakuza ways. But like Michael Corleone says, "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in." Or as my man Jay-Z says, "No matter where you go, you are what you are player/ And you can try to change but that's just the top layer/ Man, you was who you was 'fore you got here." Naturally, another group, the Otsuka, wants in on the action and takes advantage of the Kurata's newfound softness. Scuffles ensue and Tesu "the Phoenix", Boss Kurata's loyal right hand man, is forced to flee Tokyo and live the life of a drifter as the Otsukas try to hunt him down.

Apparently the themes of many of the old yakuza flicks are the same, which typically revolve around an honorable outlaw torn between the contradictory values of giri (duty) and ninjo (personal feelings.) (Thanks wikipedia!) In many ways they mirror the typical samurai and American westerns of the time and the western influence upon Tokyo Drifter oozes out of its pores. The soundtrack is harmonica-heavy complete with whistling and single shot gunfire more reminiscent of old revolvers rather than modern handguns. There are long tracking shots of our hero wandering the lonely countryside and there is even an old fashioned barroom brawl in a saloon. Even the title, Tokyo Drifter, has a very distinct westerner name to it, Clint Eastwood's High Plains Drifter immediately comes to mind.

However, this is not a western per say. It simply draws one of its many inspirations from them. The most notable inspirations are pop art and jazz. Many of the interior set locations are impressive with a dazzling array of colors and 1960's contemporary feel. I wish there were better screenshots of this movie on google to chose from because they are quite beautiful. The interior shots are so impressive they could be made into a coffee table book of pop art and contemporary design. The shots of the busy cosmopolitan Tokyo are complimented with saxophones and the pulsating rhythm of drums, giving the feel of a groovy jazz club.

Everything has a very polished stylized feel, from the bright colored suit that Tesu wears even to the way people plummet to the ground after dying. Watching this movie, I could not help but think of Kill Bill and after doing a little reading it's not difficult to see why. Seijun Suzuki is listed as one of Quentin Tarantino's favorite directors and there is definitely similarities between the two movies. For instance the beginning sequence of both movies are shot in black and white while the rest of the pictures are vivid in color. There are long shots of action like the one pictured above that look similar to shots in Kill Bill.

My one minor complaint is that the the film does languish a bit towards the middle with random scenes of silly wandering and fighting that don't advance the plot much further and don't really enhance the feeling of of his solitude, which is what I assume Suzuki was going for.

Bottom line, I'd recommend this to anyone who likes artsy visual stuff, westerns, or crime dramas.

Grade: B+