I like gangster movies. I like Japanese movies. You see that Beat Takeshi stars, directs and edits the movie and you may fear that he's an egomaniac and the film will be self-indulgent. It's not. It's got a unique point of view. It's got nobility. Takeshi's character is noble. One of his followers is noble. One would say that the family feeling in this movie is sweet, if it would not be weird to talk about the sweetness of a movie as blood-spattered as this one is. And this one is blood-spattered. My wife, whose taste in movies is usually much more sanguinary than mine, stopped watching it before it was over, so violent were the obeisances made to show faithfulness. This movie would be utterly unsuitable for children because of blood and guts and language. But it's funny. It's funny and honorable people gain moral victories and family members as well as people unrelated by blood show each other brotherly love. I fear for this culture-- our world culture-- that the only movie where I have seen honor and brotherly love lately is this film filled to overflowing with buckets of blood.
