OUTRAGE

Japan, 2010, 109 minutes, Colour.
Beat Takeshi.
Directed by Takeshi Kitano.

Despicable things done by despicable people in despicable ways – and filmed to highlight how ugly and despicable they are. This is a Yakuza story with characters who exhibit no redeeming human features and about whom, at the beginning, we couldn’t care less, whom at the middle we couldn’t care lesser about and at the end couldn’t care lessest.

Since Takeshi Kitano wrote, edited and directed and stars as the hitman who does the most violent torture and killing, it all lies at his door. He has made some interesting Yakuza films in the past (and some violent ones) and some fine films like Hana-bi and Zatoichi. But this is a brutal film about brutes.

1. The title, the Yakuza types, their outrageous behaviour towards each other? The violence and an outrage for the audience?

2. The director, his reputation, films? His gangster films and their violence? The brutality of this film? His role in the making, his performance, perpetrating the violence?

3. Japan, the cities, the Yakuza retreats, offices and clubs, streets? The bridges, the coast? A sense of realism? The pounding score?

4. The audience attitude towards the Yakuza? The history of Japan?

5. The characters all Yakuza, no values except loyalty to their code?

6. The initial meeting, the chairman, his control, his domination of the heads? Holding Ikemoto back, the threats? The chauffeurs all waiting with the cars?

7. The film showing all the intrigues, the Yakuza families, pacts, words not to be trusted, power struggles, the money issues, drugs, pornography, clubs? The setting up of the phony war?

8. The Yakuza club, the man in debt, the phone call, the young man going, his humiliation, the cutting off of fingers? Traditional apologies with fingers and money? The to-and-fro diplomacy? Otomo and his slashing the man’s face?

9. Deals, meetings, lies?

10. The set-up with the ambassador from Africa, taking him out, at the club, with the prostitute, the fake murder, the hold over him, his fears, setting up the casino, his being the host, humiliated, the arguments about the percentage, in the car, the police holding them up, the murdered man in the boot, his having to dig and bury the body?

11. Otomo as a focus, ruthless? His dealings with the corrupt policeman, their past together, boxing? His girlfriend and the (**?? in the?) car? His being conscienceless? The personalities/or not of the different Yakuza members? Ikemoto and his ruthlessness? Murase and his disfigurement? The mutilations, the deaths, in the baths, in cars, on the roads, torture for ears, tongue, decapitation?

12. The corrupt policeman, his background, his winning in the end?

13. The chairman and his orders, Kato and carrying them out, Kato eventually killing him and taking over?

14. The almost absence of women, the prostitutes, the slurs on the older women, sexist, the deaths?

15. Otomo and his giving himself up, going to prison, watching the baseball, the facially disfigured man getting his revenge?

16. The end – and everything beginning again?