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Stray Cat (Makiko Esumi) is a contract killer, and she must be pretty
good too, since the Guild has set her as Number 3 ... however, as of late
she has grown tired of her job and wants out, but her contact, the masked
Uekyo (Sayoko Yamaguchi), warns her that the Guild won't accept that -
instead she gives her a new assignment: To kill Hundred Eyes, the
Number 1 according to the Guild, and take his place. Two problems though,
nobody, not even the Guild, knows who Hundred Eyes really is, it could be
anybody, and everybody else has gotten the same assignement, so slowly but
surely the Guild killers start to kill each other - and in order to
survive, Stray Cat has to join the game, even if she has grown soft enough
by now that she refuses to kill a witness of one of her hits, the young
girl Sayoko (Hanae Kan), and instead adopts her.
Stray Cat's duels and the opponents she faces get more and more
bizarre, and the whole affair gets to her more and more, especially when
she ahs to sacrifice Sayoko as well, but ultimately she makes it through
all the killers after her to meet Hundred Eyes - who turns out to be her
contact Uekyo herself (not really surprisingly). In an extended finale
(which involves an underground world and half-naked dancers, among other
things), Stray Cat finally manages to shoot Hundred Eyes.
Now that she's Number 1, Stray Cat hopes to leave the whole world of
paid assassins behind her ... but not so, around the very next corner, she
meets yet another killer who wants to become Number 1 ... and to save him
the trouble, Stray Cat (who probably could have taken her opponent easily)
just shoots herself ...
A very weird movie. A sort-of reinterpretation of director Suzuki's own
masterpiece Branded to Kill
from 34 years ago, Pistol Opera starts out realistic enough, just
like your typical genre film, but as the plot unfolds, the whole thing
gets weirder and weirder and moves into a bizarre, surreal world of
primary colours, of intentionally klutzy special effects and intentionally
unconvincing sets that totally transcend the genre and add a very trippy
feeling to the proceedings - which is definitely not something one would
expect from a crime drama.
In itself, the film is fascinating, but be warned, if you expect solid
crime drama or even a film along the lines of Branded
to Kill, you'll probably be disappointed.
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