Seijun Suzuki was the second Japanese director who came to my attention. While I’d seen a few Japanese films before this point, Akira Kurasawa was the only director whose name stuck in my mind. Seijun Suzuki achieved name worthy status when his Branded To Kill and Tokyo Drifter were released on home video in America. They became regular rentals on the Cult Movie shelves at Vizarts. The movies had a great story since Suzuki had been so creatively radical while making them that Nikkatsu movie studio fired him. He had done nearly 40 films for the studio although most of them were the lesser budget programmers on a double feature with a more prestigious film. Nikkatsu just wanted product like a director to crank these films out like an episode of Matlock. Don’t stick out. Suzuki wanted more than just shoot the script. He was on the path to doing more than delivering a straightforward movie before his landmark films. Tattooed Life tosses away realism at certain moments to be more than just a gangster B-movie. The film takes place in the first year of the Showa era which is around 1924. This is why there’s trains, record players and revolvers. The movie captures the time when the Yakuza went from swords to bullets.
Tetsu (Pokémon the Movie: Black – Victini and Reshiram‘s Hideki Takahashi) is a Yakuza member who performs a hitjob on a rival family’s boss. He uses his blood money to pay for his brother’s art school tuition and hops a pedi-cab sent by his Yakuza group. He needs to lay low for a bit. However it seems that his family has decided Tetsu needs to lay six feet lower. Hitman intercept the pedi-cab to take him out. His brother Kenji (Black Snow‘s Kotobuki Hananomoto) arrives on the scene and snuff the assailant out. This changes the future for both. Kenji can’t return to art school having turned his hands into killing machines. Tetsu and Kenji need to hide from the Yakuza. They head towards a nearby port so they can make their way to Manchuria. Things don’t go right as they get fleeced by a ship’s captain and stuck on the dock. Eventually they find themselves working with a local crew on building a train tunnel through a mountain. Tetsu does his best to hide his Yakuza tattoos underneath his robes. He doesn’t want people to know he’s connected. His brother falls in love with a married woman. He makes the extremely bad choice of using her for his art projects. This allows others to know something’s going on. Complicating things further is the arrival of the revival Yakuza gang wanting a piece of the railroad construction contract. Doesn’t seem like Tetsu and Kenji are going to be able to keep a low profile before they catch a ship to Manchuria.
Tattooed Life is tight tale of putting brotherhood above a crime family. Tetsu was a loyal solider for his Yakuza overlords. He had no clue they’d make him into a patsy. Tetsu does his best to keep his brother Kenji safe, but the life of crime turns him into a murderer. Tetsu expresses the guilt during their journey. Emotionally these two characters (and actors) work so well off each other as they flee everyone. No matter their intentions, they can’t quite keep from sticking out. Seijun Suzuki directs Tattooed Life so the action does stick out from a normal B-movie. He gives visual flairs that keeps you glued the screen. The finale has fantastical art house moments. I don’t want to give anything away, but Suzuki dazzles us with optical effects and symbolic imagery that elevates the fighting. You can sense that more than a few directors have lifted elements from his final showdown to look original. Watching Tattooed Life doesn’t feel like a supporting title on a double feature. This is a solo headliner. Tattooed Life proves that there’s a reason why Seijun Suzuki name stuck out.
Video is 2.35:1 anamorphic. The 1080p transfer brings out life in the Japanese countryside. The Audio is Japanese LPCM 2.0 Mono. You’ll hear plenty when the explosives go off. The movie is subtitled in English.
Audio commentary by William Carroll, author of Seijun Suzuki and Postwar Cinema gets into the romantic ideal of the Yakuza was spread in film. He describes and identifies Suzuki’s style of filmmaking. There’s information about the Japanese students who revived Suzuki’s films after he was fired from Nikkatsu. We get the context of how other movies of this genre operated. There’s also major information on how Nikkatsu worked with a theater chain.
Seijun Suzuki (10:30) has the director take about his movies. He’s thrilled they have a following after all these years. He talks about the turmoil in Japan during the ’60s. He gets into how he wasn’t good a realism which is reflected in his approach to filmmaking. He talks his career at Nikkatsu and how the studio was set up so scripts were written for the stars and directors weren’t allowed to mess with them. This didn’t quite work for him after a while. He gets into how art director Takeo Kimura helped him do more with the movies. The interview was recorded in 2006 and recently edited for this release. Suzuki passed away in 2017.
Takeo Kimura (11:36) has the art director discuss his collaborations with Suzuki. Takeo Kimura started working with Suzuki at Nikkatsu when he arrived. He felt Suzuki was different from the other directors. We get clips of their other films as he describes what they did during produciton. This interview was also recorded in 2006 and freshly cut for the Blu-ray.
Trailer (3:05) starts with a killing and an explosion.
Limited edition booklet features an essay by Tom Vick on Seijun Suzuki. There’s also an archival review of the film which showed Suzuki was before his time when it came to the ending.
Radiance Films present Tattooed Life: Special Edition. Directed by Seijun Suzuki. Screenplay by Kei Hattori & Kinya Naoi. Starring Hideki Takahashi, Hiroko Ito, Seizaburô Kawazu, Masako Izumi, Kayo Matsuo. Running Time: 87 minutes. Rating: Unrated. Release Date: September 24, 2024.
