Outrage

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Autoreiji (Outrage)

July 15th 2011 03:38

Sekiuchi (Kitamura Soichiro), boss of the Sannokai, a huge organized crime syndicate controlling the entire Kanto region, issues a stern warning to his lieutenant Kato (Miura Tomokazu) and right-hand man Ikemoto (Kunimura Jun), head of the Ikemoto organised crime family. Kato orders Ikemoto to bring the unassociated Murase gang in line, and he immediately passes the task on to his subordinate Otomo (Beat Takeshi), who runs his own crew. What follows is a series of sycophantic manipulation, betrayals, honour rituals, ambushes, revenge killings, insubordination, and more and more bloodshed. Outrage (2010) is Takeshi Kitano’s return to the gangster-crime genre, and it’s his best movie since Sonatine (1993).

Takeshi “Beat” Kitano designed Outrage as a movie for the fans, to entertain those who admired his signature ice-cool deadpan style combined with organised crime and extreme violence, but also to make something commercially successful. He was, however, reluctant to label it as a return to his roots but admitted that the yakuza movies were a genre in which he was talented. So designed was this movie that Kitano first thought up ways in which his characters would be killed and then wrote a screenplay around these murder set pieces.

Beat Takeshi as Otomo

Apart from casting himself no other actor has appeared in his previous movies. Takeshi isn’t the most expressive actor on the planet, but he continues to command a formidable presence on screen, and those facial twitches give me the creeps. Dressed mostly in a beige linen suit his Otomo is no less calculating and deadly as any other violent cop or merciless yakuzu he’s played. He’s given superb support from his ensemble cast, but especially Kippei Shiina as Mizuno, and Jun Kunimura.

Outragei Miura Tomokazu, Jun Kunimura, Kippei Shiina

Kato (Miura Tomokazu) and Mizuno (Kippei Shiina) look on as their boss Ikemoto (Jun Kunimura) gambles

This is Kitano’s first movie in 2:35:1 ration and uses the widescreen format beautifully, still utilising his trademark long shots. As in all his movies there’s a scene by the seaside, this time it is right at film’s end, where the story comes to a suitably traitorous bullet in the head. It’s the perfect finish to what has been a thoroughly nihilistic, yet poetically ironic tale of out-dated honour. Outrage is just as its title says, a modern observation on a dying (pun intended) tradition; where ultra-violence still speaks volume, and status and kudos within a crime family have become worthless. Squabbles become fights, fights become battles, and battles become an all-out war.

Execution spa style

Keiichi Suzuki delivers an excellent electronic score that is used very sparingly, just enough to infuse a sense of underlying dread, or to spike a little tension. Just like Kitano’s best work, the power comes from a stillness, a minimalism, that is periodically punctuated by short, sharp , and savage moments of violence. It does bug me that Kitano has his hoods punch the living daylights out of each other and yet they frequently walk away with little injury. These are often king hits, the kind of punch that can kill a man. Kitano states “I don't like the way Tarantino treats violence. Pulp Fiction (1994) doesn't show realistic violence, but to show violence realistically, you need stamina. It's not easy.” But I beg to differ.

You feelin' lucky, punk?!

Two of Kitano’s favourite movies are William Freidkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) and Sam Peckinpah’s Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Gracia (1974), two directors well versed in extreme screen violence, but also two contrasting directors with Freidkin’s use of violence from the naturalist school of filmmaking and Peckinpah’s from the surrealist school. Takeshi Kitano seems to have taken elements of both techniques and created his own unique take.

Outrage was nominated for the Palm D’Or at Cannes last year. There is already an Outrage 2 in pre-production, which confirms Japanese audiences must have lapped up his long-awaited return to the crime fold. For me Outrage is a real return to form; not only one of Kitano’s best movies, but it is one of the very best yakuza movies, period.