Tokijiro: Lone Yakuza / Tattooed Life

While the English equivalent of yakuza is “gangster,” it would be a mistake equate the genre with American films like Scarface, Little Caesar or Goodfellas. While those films largely deal with the consequences of out-of-control greed and fatal ambition, Japanese criminals play by a much stricter set of rules. To become a yakuza is to give up one’s very humanity, at least as it’s presented in Tokijiro: Lone Yakuza (1966) and Tattooed Life (1965), a pair of anti-yakuza films that drift into the realm of violent melodrama.

After assassinating the leader of a rival clan, Tokijoro finds himself unexpectedly caring for the dead man’s wife, Okinu, and her young son. But as their relationship grows, the bonds of honor prevent them from becoming a true family. Attempting to atone for his past sins, Tokijoro takes up the sword again to save the woman he loves.

While director Tai Kato begins his film with fountains of blood, Lone Yakuza quickly sidesteps the genre conventions. It’s a love story complete with all the tragic irony of a Shakespearean drama but played with a rigid sense of integrity. Perhaps more importantly, it gives equal weight to the female performance by Ikeuchi Junko, who suffers from the same guilt and social expectations as Tokijiro. Despite the oaths of yakuza loyalty, it’s a poor tradeoff for the rewards of home and family.

The same message runs throughout Seijun Suzuki’s Tattooed Life, which finds a pair of ex-yakuza in a quiet rural hideout who find the lure of belonging to a community so strong it delays their escape overseas. Tetsu and his younger brother Kenji become members of a mining crew, quickly winning their respect…and the affection the boss’s wife and her sister. But as they both grow more comfortable in their new home, it only means they have more to lose.

A real departure for Suzuki in terms of style rather than subject, Tattooed Life takes place amidst a refuge of lush forests and bubbling streams. It’s here that Tetsu – his tattooed back carefully hidden from view – is cleansed of his previous life and his brother reconnected with his artistic nature. Their adoption into a real family provides an emotional and spiritual rebirth. This notion of a return to a natural state is common enough in Japanese films and literature. But Suzuki does it with such cinematic grace it’s all the more jarring when we’re thrust back into the brutality of bloodshed, including one uninterrupted overhead tracking shot of swordplay that is a mic drop moment for the genre.

Released separately in a pair of 3000-copy limited editions, Radiance has quickly become a rich pipeline for undiscovered Japanese films that cinephiles will wonder how they lived without. Both feature a superlative visual presentation with commentary track, visual essays, interviews and liner notes.







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