SYNOPSIS: When Japanese New Wave bad boy Seijun Suzuki delivered this brutal, hilarious, and visually inspired masterpiece to the executives at his studio, he was promptly fired. Branded to Kill tells the ecstatically bent story of a yakuza assassin with a fetish for sniffing steamed rice (the chipmunk-cheeked superstar Joe Shishido) who botches a job and ends up a target himself. This is Suzuki at his most extreme—the flabbergasting pinnacle of his sixties pop-art aesthetic
What happened?! Two of my absolute favorite Criterion films are getting NEW artwork for their BluRay releases! And I can't tell which cover is my favorite!!!! AAAGGHHH!
What didn't work for Alphaville works here. The colors, the hand drawn artwork, the over all 'pop' feel to it and everyone has guns. I would really like to turn this into a poster, frame it and hang it in my imaginary movie theatre room (I seriously have an imaginary theatre and I imagine it often!) The blu ray cover might have actually done better without the vector built butterflies. Just a straight up face shot of the killer who always looks like he has just left the dentist office (thanks to a permanent cheekbone implant) would have been cool. In fact I'm not sure why they added butterflies, but I know that of the two I prefer the original color.
SYNOPSIS: In this jazzy gangster film, reformed killer Tetsu’s attempt to go straight is thwarted when his former cohorts call him back to Tokyo to help battle a rival gang. Director Seijun Suzuki’s onslaught of stylized violence and trippy colors is equal parts Russ Meyer, Samuel Fuller, and Nagisa Oshima—an anything-goes, in-your-face rampage. Tokyo Drifter is a delirious highlight of the brilliantly excessive Japanese cinema of the sixties.
This one I definitely prefer the new blu ray edition. The original cover still works and is actually very cool, featuring fantastic pop art and compliments its 'Branded to Kill' cousin, but the blu edition is mind blowingly awesome. Look at that. That is a pink blast coming from the the gun of the man who shops at goodwill. His gun is part lightsaber. That is one of the best covers I've seen.
Criterion Canvas score
Branded to Kill (dvd) A (blu) B
Tokyo Story (dvd) A (blu) A+
No comments:
Post a Comment