Pistol Opera

Starring:Makiko Esumi, Sayoko Yamaguchi, Hanae Kan, Masatoshi Nagase, Mikijiro Hira, Kirin Kiki, Kenji Sawada, Tomio Aoki, Haruko Kato, Yoji Tanaka, Yeong-he Han, Kensaku Watanabe, Jan Woudstra, Yoshiyuki Morishita
Director: Seijun Suzuki
Studio: Tokyo Shock
Product Type: DVD

Description

As powerful and energetic as ever, 78-year old director Seijun Suzuki, creates a stunningly lurid, extreme tale of a woman assassin's (portrayed by new sensation Makiko Esumi) surreal rise in the criminal underworld. Thirty-three years later, this master of the pulp thriller reworks his own BRANDED TO KILL into a totally new, jaw-dropping experience! The original BRANDED TO KILL (1967, KOROSHI NO RAKUIN, starring Jo Shishido, Mariko Ogawa, Anne Mari) is the stylish action movie that has been the subject of homage from world-class directors such as John Woo, Quentin Tarantino, and Jim Jarmusch. Its eccentric, eye-popping images and extreme action is fast earning PISTOL OPERA a worldwide cult following.

Customer Reviews:

Not what I expected.......2007-02-12

This is one of the weirdest movies I have ever come across. Unfortunately it is incredibly boring. It starts off very funny with a wheelchair assassin and gets really bad from there. The story is about a female assassin and the movie feels a lot more like a play. The music was great but it was the only good thing about the movie. The underage nudity has to be commented on also. It was just absolutely disgusting. I don't know how that is legal. This is a piece of art that I enjoyed looking at for a minute, but I found it unbearable to watch the whole movie. I had a lot of trouble getting through the final half hour.

DVD from Tokyo Shock is full screened and has very good picture quality.

Works For Me.......2006-02-21

I'm not sure why, but this movie makes sense to me in some surreal way. There are some 'Japanese' bits that I don't quite get (probably more than I even noticed, though such is what you get with foreign film), but the color, the strange poetic flow of the dialogue... As said, it all just seems to work in my head. Highly recommended, though just as much I suggest a rental prior to purchase.

The soundtrack's awesome too by the way.

Seijun slipps a gear . . ........2005-08-04

or lose the plot, which ever cliche works for ya, because this movie doesn't. I watched the whole thing a 2x speed (cause you can still read the subtitles) and I was still bored senseless. Branded To Kill is so much more brilliant and nuanced than this stilted peice of pretentious dreck, the comparison can't even be made. Let's no forget some utterly pointless lesbian undertones and underage nudity.

About the only thing that held my interest was Stray Cat; she has a wonderful face. Too bad it's this quagmire of a film.

Innocence, intensity, and intractability.......2004-12-08

Plot doesn't count.

Not with this baby. It doesn't matter about who's the No. 3 killer or who's No. 1 or No. 5 or...whatever. What matters, if it can be stated that way, is the constant barrage of visuals and the trying to be hip dialogue.

This is a wacky, peculiar movie. Some folks dismiss it as being a big bunch of nothing--very likely because there is no real linear plot. Some tout it as being a work of genius--possibly because, in addition to it having no real linear plot it has all kinds of surreal imagery and complete non-sequiturs (sp.?) plotwise, logic-wise, character-wise, and any other kind of way-wise. What I'm gonna do here is to say that it does have some elements of interest but that for anyone who loves character and/or plot development, this is NOT gonna do it for ya.

What we DO know is that the main character is a young woman, Stray Cat, who is the No. 3 killer and that there is a mysterious woman she hangs out with who is her "agent" and also that she, Stray Cat, has a much younger sister who wants to learn from her older sibling how to kill. We also meet Hundred Eyes, the No. 1 killer, Painless Man, the No. 5 killer--a long-bearded American who speaks Japanese, Teacher, the No. 2 killer--a man in a wheelchair, and various other "Numbers" all of whom have colorful names and, again, no character development at all.

The only real connection this has, it seems to me, to Branded to Kill, Suzuki's delirious 1967 film, is the similarity of the presence of "No. 1" and "No. 2" and all that. Other than that, this film is radically different. Aside from the difference in color (Branded to Kill is in black & white; Pistol Opera is in blazing color, similar to Tokyo Drifter), Pistol Opera makes use of so many hallucinatory/dream sequences that it is virtually impossible to distinguish the "real" from the "non-real".

This seems to be the point of the whole thing, in fact. That, and the juxtaposition of innocence with mortality. The younger sister is the representation of innocence who her older sibling, Stray Cat, does not want to corrupt by teaching her how to kill, and with whom Stray Cat has a strong bond. The No. 3 killer (i.e., Stray Cat) wants to try to have her cake and eat it too. She wants to be No. 3, or even higher, but she also wants the innocence of her younger sister. Is this an "art film" analysis? Gee, I dunno. This is just the way it struck me when I saw the film.

The intensity of the brilliant colors is nothing new for Suzuki; as mentioned previously, he did this before with Tokyo Drifter and other films as well. But here he, in essence, goes overboard. The yellows are blindingly bright, as are various other hues. Intensity, too, is obvious in the hipper than hip, often arch dialogue that smacks the viewer in the mental face all the time. It never lets up.

This wacky fusion of innocence and intensity marks Suzuki as an original who has no intention of giving up on how to push style so far, so hard, and so frequently that while the viewer may not cotton to this film at all, he won't soon forget it.

Not my kind of film...but truly different, unique, and a fascinating piece of cinema. Wacky to the max. Recommended? Wow, who knows???

Impressive amalgamation of styles........2004-04-02

Picture Sergio Leonne crossed with John Woo and then add a big dash of Martha Grahmm.

A visually unique film, a remake of Suzuki's 1967 film Branded to Kill, which (obliquely) tells the story of a young hit-person named Stray Cat (Brian Setzer jokes intentionally witheld) who has been forced into a killing tournament with other ranked assasins.

The aspect of this film that holds it in such sharp relief from others in the genre is the visualization. Suzuki use a few conventional setups, but on the whole the film shows an expresionist representation of the story taking place. There are even portions of Pistol Opera where dance becomes the intergral means of communicating plot to a viewer.

While it can be a bit confusing at times (I still don't get the deal with the bulldozer and the poppies) and has a taste of being filmed in a hurry (there was one scene where I stopped counting boom shots around 10 and a very important scene where someone runs into a "tree" and nearly knocks the flimsy thing over), these are nitpicks.

I just finished watching this film and wanted to write this while the experiance is fresh in my mind. My advice is to relax. If a story element has you frowning, give it a minute and things should become clear. Even if it doesn't, don't worry about it. This is a rad flick, a cool story with awesome visual impact.

Description

Tokyo is a dark technopolis ruled by Nogi, a yakuza boss specializing in drugs and murder. He gained absolute power by executing the former boss and marrying his daughter, Chiaki. Only Chiaki's half sister, the mysterious Ikko, threatens him. Inspired by a legendary hit woman, Ikko calls herself the Black Angel and plans to wash away her father's murderer in a deluge of blood. Black Angel II Mayo, the Black Angel, is ordered to assassinate a powerful syndicate leader. The hit goes awry as the crime boss' bodyguard steps in the way. It's none other than Yamambe, who once rescued Mayo from a rape and has lived in her heart ever since. The Black Angel escapes with her life, but is ordered to return and kill the mafioso at any cost. Pistol Opera Stray Cat is number three. She wants to be number one with the gun. Seijun Suzuki creates a stunningly lurid, extreme tale of a woman assassin's surreal rise in the criminal underworld. Its eccentric, eye-popping images and extreme action is fast earning Pistol Opera a worldwide cult following. Starring new sensation Makiko Esumi.

Customer Reviews:

Black Angel 1 and 2 are good but Pistol Opera was hard to watch.......2007-02-12

Black Angel 1 and 2 are good "girls with guns" genre movies. I liked the 1st and loved the 2nd. Pistol Opera I found absolutely unwatchable. It started out OK but had a hard time ending. This 3-pack is a good deal since it is cheaper than buying any of these movies by themselves.

So buy it for the Black Angel movies. All have pretty good picture quality and Japanese audio.

Art of the Gun Triple Feature.......2007-01-28

I got this pack because I wanted to see Pistol Opera. I figured I may as well get two more movies with it. Pistol Opera was not as good as I thought it would be. It was really "artsy". It was okay, but it wasn't what I thought it would be. I was really surprised with the Black Angel movies though. I figured those would be so-so movies. I really did like the first Black Angel. It was probably my favorite of the three. Black Angel 2 was not as good as the first one, but it was still a decent movie. It didn't suck. I was just kind of let down because it didn't come out as good as the first one. Overall the movie pack was cheap and the movies weren't horrible. I don't regret buying this pack.

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