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Hanada (Jo Shishido) is the No 3 killer of the country, and usually he
does his job with precision and with style, but then he botches up a job,
and suddenly everybody turns against him, his boss (Isao Tamagawa) and
even his wife (Mariko Ogawa). Eventually, the only person he can trust
turns out to be Misako (Annu Mari), ironically a woman who was hired to
assassinate him but has refused and now wants him to kill her - which in
turn he cannot do.
Then his former allies kidnap Misako, torture her and eventually kill
her. This proves to be too much for Hanada, and he goes after them, wiping
out the entire organisation single-handedly ... but not the entire
organisation actually, the last one still alive is the famed No 1 (Koji
Nambara), the single most successful killer of the country, and No 1
promises Hanada to kill him, but not right away, he prefers their
shoot-out to be a big showdown. Still, No 1 uses every trick in the book
to turn Hanada into a nervous wreck, like putting his appartment under
surveillance and the like. Then he comes for a visit in person, and for a
time they are inseperable, because each has to fear once he turns his back
the other one would shoot him.
Ultimately though, No 1 invites Hanada to a shootout in a boxing arena,
with Misako, who hasn't been killed after all, as the prize. At the boxing
arena, No 1 seems to come out of the fight victorious, but Hanada still
has a few aces up his sleeve, and ultimately he manages to kill No 1 ...
even though he survives him only by a few minutes, enough time to
accidently shoot Misako ...
What sounds like a ridiculously formulaic thriller is actually an
sbstract, surreal and other-worldly piece of genre cinema. This film is so
far out actually that back in the days, the bosses of Nikkatsu,
where Seijun Suzuki was a contract director, fired him after seeing it. If
you look at the film as a formula movie, you might even tend to agree with
the studio bosses, but seen as a work of art, the film is nothing short of
stunning: Here, tried-and-true genre elements are twisted and turned
around until they look fresh and original, everything is directed in a
hip, fashionable yet individualistic style not expected from that sort of
film, with some scenes even bordering the anachronistic, and occasionally
irony pops up in the most unexpected scenes. To put it anoher way, this
film is quite unlike everything else you might have ever seen - and it's
great at that.
Recommendation.
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