Pisutoru opera

This is one of the best films ever made. An intense fever dream of surrealism, dream logic, and a beautiful painter's touch. I've never seen any other films that could straight-up be called "avantgarde action"; I wish there were more films like this...

What really strikes me are the colors, though the story (which is relatively straightforward; ignore the other reviews) is one extremely philosophical, awesomely existential dilemma after another.

Brilliant in every way a movie can be. Masterpiece. Hated by the same people who hate Izo and El Topo (aka people who can't wrap their head around true brilliance).

Don't understand how ANYONE could hate on this film, even if they didn't "get it" all. The visuals alone are reason enough to see this.

I was eager to see "Pistol Opera" for a variety of reasons. I had recently seen "Branded to Kill" and the idea of a follow-up/sequel/remake by the same director intrigued me. Furthermore, I am a fan of the lead actress, Makiko Esumi, from her work on Japanese TV.

Sadly, this film goes nowhere...slowly. The plot seemed simple enough but within minutes I was lost. These "professional killers" spend nearly the entire film killing each other which begs the question who is employing these people and what purpose they serve. Lots of these scenes look wonderful and have some fun ideas, but nothing makes any sense. Characters deliver long, meandering soliloquies into the camera, flip-flopping from Japanese to English and back again. Neither language adds any clarity to the circumstances. The whole thing feels like some kind of experimental stage play, especially the final showdown where characters enter and exit bizarre scenery accompanied by strange, nearly naked dancers.

What the hell?

I first saw the preview for Pistol Opera on several Japanese DVDs I had the pleasure of viewing. It was the vivid imagery that captured my attention not to mention a very attractive leading lady. Now what followed was an amazing journey through the world of Stray Cat, a hired gun with a love for her pistol, engaged (reluctantly at first)in a competition to be #1 among the top gunslingers. Simple enough, right? WRONG!!!! What follows is a film that keeps your fingers on the rewind button, your mouth wide open and your eyes ready to bug out of your skull. A simple skeleton of a plot is covered with layers of sexuality (subtle, and in your face), violence, and just a whole bunch of WTF (WT is for "What The" you can figure the rest out) moments. I enjoyed it in the same way that we all have our guilty pleasures, but I will admit that some of the scenes and displays may go beyond past limits you may have set for yourself. Viewer Discretion is ADVISED!!

Seijun Suzuki has made great films, and at least some very good ones. And oddly enough some of those films were done not with a completely free hand. Suzuki had resistance (and even got fired during the editing) with Branded to Kill, his 1967 masterpiece that serves as the sort of inspiration for this *extremely* loose remake/re-telling. But maybe that served him better than here, which is a little like Lynch with Inland Empire: the floodgates are open, and it's high time to just let whatever s***'s inside fly out. Only unlike a Lynchian DV mescaline trip into brain-tubes, this is like a Kabuki fever dream cooked up by the samurai in Lowry's dream scenes in Brazil. It's an artist working without a net and, frankly, without much of a story or close to identifiable actors, either.

If Pistol Opera weren't made by a director who has a sure hand with his craft, if not in his old age a mastery, then it would be just about unwatchable. This is something sad to say as I would have loved to consider Pistol Opera a luxurious expressionist piece, something that is so assured with creating a mood that it doesn't need a firm story. But in this story, whatever there is of it, about a female No. 3 killer (in Branded it was male) who has to face off against the Hundred Eyes killer and the No. 1 killer while fending off the pleas of a little girl who just wants to be a killer too, it needs some kind of focus from time to time. After a few scenes of strange set up where No. 3 faces her "boss" of sorts who wears a mouth mask and talk in abstract dialog, the film just goes off into tangents... and then more of them...

Some of this, perhaps, was meant to be parody, a delirious send-up of both Yakuza thrillers and Kabuki theater, and its shot half on location (there is, in one of the most satisfying and crazy scenes, a chase between No. 3 and a man in a skewed wheelchair along a riverbank), half in studio. But it's not very funny, and its not really all-encompassing as a work of surrealism. I was taken in by its cinematography and sets and a perversely awesome array of colors, and make no mistake there's rarely a frame of the film that doesn't look gorgeous. But there needs to be more than just fantastical camera moves. There's a shoot-out towards the end that not only breaks the 180 degree rule (you know the one if you're familiar with basic camera direction) but gives it a middle finger with a silver bullet right between the face.

But there needs to be something else, something that Branded to Kill and Tokyo Drifter just had instinctively, which is soul, a purpose in its subversion. Too much of Pistol Opera feels like exercise without result, like in those overlong scenes with the woman talking to the camera about God knows what. I expected the unexpected, but I didn't expect to be... bewildered to disappointment.

If ya like colors, this is the flick for you! So all you lame-o b&w Orson Welles fans who are looking for cinematic architecture and intellectual substance, go away!

Ok sarcasm aside, this is truly an enjoyable film... if you like colors. If you like to be bombarded with surreal images and bizarre plot leaps, such as characters being dead one minute, alive the next, and basically existing in an incomprehensible dream world which ends with the words "wtf" on everyone's lips, then this film will wow you.

Me personally, I liked it, but I liked it the same way I like an opera (literally an opera, get it?) where the point is to enjoy the artistry of the presentation rather than any type of storytelling.

Compare this to maybe some of Andy Worhol's experimental work, though not quite as self indulgent as an 8 hour still camera on the Empire State Building. Maybe closer to something by David Lynch, Peter Greenaway or Tarkovsky... BUT (and this is a "big butt" of Peewee Hermanian proportions), what makes it interesting is a dark comic, tongue-in-cheek sort of self mockery which keeps the film from seeming too pretentious.

So imagine all those "pretentious" filmmakers I just mentioned, but add a heavy splash of Quentin Tarantino ("Pulp Fiction"), mix vigorously and of course add lots of bloomin COLORS. Have you seen the infamous Monkees film "Head"? There ya go