Kamikaze Taxi, The Singing Detective, Ladykillers and Now Playing Movies

I haven't been motivated much to write about movies, TV or DVDs - nothing has really inspired me.

I tried to sketch out my ideas regarding Kamikaze Taxi (1995). Its got its good points, after all - a compelling story about two "kamikazes" - one who is marked for death by the Yakuza and determined to bring them down with them and the other drives for Kamikaze Taxis. They come together for a very long taxi ride full of revenge and redemption. Kamikaze stands for "divine wind" - and is often associated with the xenophobia of the Japanese people. The story is that centuries ago a "divine wind" foiled an invaders plans to conquer the island. The taxi driver, Kantake, is a Japanese native but is assigned his lowly lot in life because he is looked down upon as an immigrant from Peru where he grew up. A goodly amount of Japanese fled to South America after World War II to look for jobs - we are reminded that at the time of the film's making a Japan-born politician was leading the country. The movie opens up almost as a documentary interviewing the actors in their role explaining what it likes to be treated like a foreigner in their own country. We then shift into a Yakuza movie as Tatsuo, a pimp, is being assigned a new job to provide a very powerful Senator with girls to assauge his sadism. When one of the girls is beaten so badly, her face needs stitches and Tatsuo's Madam is killed in retaliation for her asking for retribution against the Senator, Tatsuo conceives an ill-planned heist of the Senator's money stash in retaliation. Soon the Yakuza are massacring his co-horts and, while he escapes, he knows he is a marked man. He makes the decision then to kill the Yakuza boss, the Senator and the man responsible for killing his best friend who helped plan the botched heist knowing full well that he will die doing so.

Kantake is a quiet driver who we see enjoying his meals at a Peruvian restaurant, able to quietly defuse a potential fight with the Yakuza brought on by a rude taxi customer and seemingly quietly going about his life such as it is. But there is more to this quiet man than he lets on and much of the movie is spent revealing whom Kantake really is. Tatsuo comes across him playing his flute at a mountain temple and hires him to ferry him through his Kamikaze mission - first visiting his home town where he stashes the loot and visits his mother's grave. The Yakuza catch up with him here and Kantake saves him. From here, their friendship deepens and their travels throughout the country often bring stereotype shattering surprises as the director explores the Japanese psyche imbedded in both the foolhardy Tatsuo who is angry on the surface but blank underneath (representing the Japanese youth) and Kantake who appears calm on the surface but has a deep rage underneath. Just whom is exacting the revenge on the people who run things in this Japan is in question.

The movie lasts about three hours, and, except for the lengthy and, at times, silly and at times funny spa scene where Tatsuo and Kantake "get in touch" with their feelings (or at least Kantake does - Tatsuo doesn't have any feelings) held my interest throughout. The pacing being slow and the cast being fairly small, though, as you can watch this film over the space of two nights and still receive the full impact (in fact I would divide it just at the beginning of the spa scene). There's alot more I could write about it but the story was interesting enough not to get into what the director was also trying to say about xenophobia and Japanese culture. Either the director didn't make his points clear enough or I'm being too lazy of a viewer to get it. Despite that I would be interested in seeing more films from writer-director Matsuo Harada.

I've also recently been watching The Singing Detective (the British TV series from the '80s). It takes some patience, as most British TV does, but it is a very interesting non-linear story about a mystery writer, Philip E. Marlowe(!), recovering in the hospital from a horrible skin disease weaving together the author's life growing up in post-War England, a film noir dramatization of his most famous book (The Singing Detective, of course) and dealing with a malicious ex-wife who is trying to steal his screenplay. Each episode features music from the '40s that are often hallucinations that shift between the novel and real-life brought on by the medication Marlowe is taking and his own deep-seated paranoia. There are six episodes spread over two DVDs. A young Joan Whalley, the modern film noir actress specialist, has a recurring dual role as a good-hearted nurse and a songbird in the film noir sequences. There's also a third DVD with a host of extras I have yet to explore.

Finally, I must say that I was not overly impressed with the Coen's Ladykillers, a caper film, of sorts, based on the great Alec Guiness film and transplanted to a stereotyped South. The brothers do much better with what they know (Minnesota and Fargo). The crew that pulls off the caper is quite predictable - the guy with the medical ailment that messes things up (recalling the original Ocean's 11), the dumb-as-an-ox guy who always comes up with the idea that saves things, the young upstart who can't control his mouth and the ex-military man. It has its moments and I'm more inclined to like Tom Hanks' Southern Colonel impersonation (actually his character is a Professor of the classics) than others have. It has some comic moments but it is entirely unbelievable when it comes to portraying the lady who is renting out a room to Hanks' character from whence he is tunelling into the casino they plan to rip off. On the other hand, it has some wonderful gospel music -- I'm no fan of the genre but done right, it can be very good and inspirational. The DVD has the uncut scenes of the two big gospel numbers which as a whole are much better than the film.

images courtesy - Dark Horizons, Japanese New Film Festival of Germany, BBC

I made a list of movies that I wouldn't mind seeing over the holiday weekend:

• Overnight
• The Grudge
• Seed of Chucky
• Napoleon Dynamite
• What the @#$( do we know?
• Sideways
• Paperclips (playing as part of our local Jewish film festival)
• Postmen in the Mountains