Can Sydney Pollack do a Japanese gangster film? Yes. The Yakuza is more than an attempt at an American version of a Japanese story, it seems to be vaguely quoting the likes of Suzuki and Fukasaku with its camera angles, slow-then-violent pacing, neon lighting, and exotic locales (I want an aquarium in my indoor pool too). I wanted to put the music in that list as well, but the film is bookended by syrupy, romantic, slow jazz, which I guess is Robert Mitchum's theme. He's the American who though he speaks Japanese, doesn't quite get the consequences of the yakuza's code or concept of obligation/burden. He makes a mess of things and triggers a tragedy of blood. But the more he understands, the more he has to play by their rules. He's the audience identification figure more than the hero here, a title I would instead give to Ken Takakura's tortured former yakuza. In many ways, Takakura is the whole of post-war Japan, a theme bubbling under the surface. With a movie that looks this cool, I can forgive the bits of ethnological exposition and the convoluted plot. Bottom line, Pollack HAS succeeded in making a Japanese gangster film, parts of which are indistinguishable from the real thing.
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Siskoid
Can Sydney Pollack do a Japanese gangster film? Yes. The Yakuza is more than an attempt at an American version of a Japanese story, it seems to be vaguely quoting the likes of Suzuki and Fukasaku with its camera angles, slow-then-violent pacing, neon lighting, and exotic locales (I want an aquarium in my indoor pool too). I wanted to put the music in that list as well, but the film is bookended by syrupy, romantic, slow jazz, which I guess is Robert Mitchum's theme. He's the American who though he speaks Japanese, doesn't quite get the consequences of the yakuza's code or concept of obligation/burden. He makes a mess of things and triggers a tragedy of blood. But the more he understands, the more he has to play by their rules. He's the audience identification figure more than the hero here, a title I would instead give to Ken Takakura's tortured former yakuza. In many ways, Takakura is the whole of post-war Japan, a theme bubbling under the surface. With a movie that looks this cool, I can forgive the bits of ethnological exposition and the convoluted plot. Bottom line, Pollack HAS succeeded in making a Japanese gangster film, parts of which are indistinguishable from the real thing.Limbesdautomne
The improbable hybridization. Nothing should work, and yet, Yakuza delivers a fine preview of the 80's.Read more in French on La Saveur des goûts amers.
allisoncm
HBO Max