"Actor: Hiroshi Yamato"

• Branded To Kill | DVD | (25/02/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Seijun Suzuki's absolutely mad yakuza movie Branded to Kill bends the hit-man genre so out-of-shape it more resembles a Luis Bunuel take on Martin Scorsese. Number Three killer Goro Hanada (Jo Shishido) is a hired gun who loves his work, but when he misses a target after a mere butterfly sets his carefully balanced aim astray, he becomes the next target of the mob. Goro is no pushover and easily dispatches the first comers, leaving them splayed in death contortions that could qualify for an Olympic event, but the rat-a-tat violence gives way to a surreal, sadistic game of cat and mouse. The legendary Number One mercilessly taunts his target before moving in with him in a macho, testosterone-laden Odd Couple truce that ends up with them handcuffed together. Kinky? Not compared to earlier scenes. The smell of boiling rice sets Goro's libido for his mistress so aflame that Suzuki censors the gymnastic sex with animated black bars that come to life in an animated cha-cha. Because Suzuki pushed his yakuza parodies and cinematic surrealism too far, his studio, Nikkatsu, finally called in their own metaphoric hit and fired the director with such force that he was effectively blackballed from the industry for a decade. It took about that long for audiences to embrace his audacious genre bending--Suzuki's pop-art sensibilities were just a bit ahead of their time. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com

• Tokyo Raiders | DVD | (21/05/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Tokyo Raiders stars Tony Leung (well known from such Hong Kong action movies as Hard-Boiled and Bullet in the Head) along with pop stars Ekin Cheng and Kelly Chen. When Macy (Chen) gets jilted at the altar in Las Vegas, she returns to Hong Kong to find her fiancé has disappeared--but in his apartment she finds Yung (Cheng), an interior decorator with surprising kung fu skills. Together they go to Japan, where they meet up with Lin (Leung), a private detective with an entourage of kung fu babes and stories that don't quite add up. From there, the plot gets more and more incomprehensible. It has something to do with counterfeit yen and a twisty series of double-crosses, but Tokyo Raiders is really about hip clothes and martial arts razzle-dazzle, all framed by the worst dubbed dialogue you've ever heard--sort of a Hong Kong version of The Mod Squad. Leung has demonstrated his acting chops in films like Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love, but he can't make this silliness sound sensible. Still, the actors are sexy, the fight scenes are splashy (if a little confusing), and the movie never wastes too much time getting from one action sequence to the next. A chase that starts out on a motorised skateboard and ends up on a trailer truck hauling new cars is particularly entertaining. --Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com

• The Barbarian And The Geisha | DVD | (20/02/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In 1856 U.S. Counsel General Townsend Harris arrives in Japan docked in the port of Shimoda at a time when foreigners were not welcomed. Harris is testing a previous open-door agreement between the two nations although Japan has no intention of going through with it. While international diplomacy moves at a snail's pace a nobleman ""gives"" Harris a geisha Okichi to ease his boredom...