Broken Rage

A fun little experimental movie from the great Beat Takeshi, whose finest work was in the long 1990s. BROKEN RAGE is a short, one-hour, and extremely low budget combination of traditional yakuza flick with slapstick comedy, and it's fair to say that fans of the director and star will enjoy it, although others may be puzzled by what plays out on screen. The first half hour sees Takeshi as the usual yakuza hitman, while the second half restages the action of the first, except in an exaggerated comic style. Takeshi is very funny, as are some of the supporting actors, and the Internet commentary amuses too.

Can't believe this got shadow-dropped onto Prime a few days ago and I'm only just learning about its release now 😭... Takeshi Kitano may be in his twilight years but that's not stopping him from doing what he loves and doing it well, with Broken Rage he paints a rollicking self-portrait of himself; an artist rethinking his relationship with the medium he's mastered and having a decidedly grand time in the process. It's a remarkably clever tactic to initially convey your story one way, only to backpedal in the second half and present it in a completely different style; it's a move that massively pays off and delivers some prime Kitano hilarity; tackling the two genres he's always been most known for, starting from a drier deadpan before rebooting into unbridled absurdity, a concise lesson in parody, creating a simple form and then breaking it with the subtle force of a sledgehammer through wood on a nail bed. In many ways, it can be seen as Kitano mocking the current filmmaking climate we live in, poking holes in everything and everyone he can, a perfect amalgamation of his works distilled into a crisp 66-minute runtime. It is a significant departure from traditional storytelling, that pays off tenfold in many ways with Broken Rage adhering to the two most significant adages in show business: always leave them laughing and wanting more; it's utterly hilarious, Kitano knows it and embraces it delivering both a love letter to himself and his fans while also ridiculing both.

This is nothing special in the style of kitano, its like a small closed ecosystem, more like an experiment, or a flying idea he had and wanted to make. Takeshi always has been a comedian first, this movie is another attempt at making a comedy film mixed with yakuza elements, whats interesting about this is the small scale of everything, feels like just a random idea that he created, to me that takes away a little bit of the enjoyment because it kinda makes you want something more, if you enjoyed this id recomend Getting any, Takeshis and Glory to the filmmaker, wich i think are his masterpieces, now that this proyect is done i really wish to see more kitano and bigger proyects.

For two decades, the directorial career of Takeshi Kitano has been in gradual decline - most notable for the greater-than-its-parts "Outrage" trilogy and some self-effacing comedies that failed to leave much lasting impression. "Broken Rage", his latest, sits somewhere between the two, mixing cops v yakuza power struggles with an innate desire to poke fun at himself, in a film with the self-aware randomness of "Getting Any?" (1994).

'Mouse' ('Beat' Takeshi, as ever) is an ageing man who frequents a coffee shop to collect orders and payments from the faceless 'M' for yakuza hits. Efficient and unassuming, he is successful, but is caught by the police, who agree to strike a deal with him to bring in the yakuza head.

The scenario then plays out again, only this time, where Mouse was good at his work, he is now a bumbling idiot, prone to slapstick errors and miscalculations. From here on in, the cool of the first half becomes a stream of quick-fire visual gags and blunder, as Kitano once again plays with the dualities of his inner mind.

"Broken Rage" feels like a better execution of Kitano's ambitious, but flawed, "Takeshis'" (2005), where the violent director and actor is contrasted by an everyday failure. Though this never gets too serious. It is very much latter-day Kitano, with the aesthetic of "Outrage", in a quite dull and colourless world. Shinya Kiyozuka's soundtrack is playful, however, and dances across the scenes, though again reflects that Kitano hasn't been the same since moving away from working with Joe Hisaishi.

But first and foremost, this is fun, and the cast of Kitano's old friends all join in with glee. Takeshi's face is perfect for deadpan humour, meeting absurdity with a stoney face. Tadanobu Asano and Nao Omori play the detective duo putting Mouse up to undercover work, and play it with an air of fun that both are easily capable of. There are also some trademark Kitano cut-aways, but largely its visual gags and silliness.

Short and sweet, there's a feel that Kitano made this purely because he felt like it, and everyone was up for joining in. But where previously, the likes of "Getting Any?" and "Glory to the Filmmaker" (2007) were self-indulgent, with jokes purely for Kitano's own ends, here we feel a bit more in on the gag, with better execution.

Kitano certainly isn't the arthouse director of the Nineties anymore, and that doesn't hang over "Broken Rage" as much as previous efforts. For two decades, he'd been on the decline, but that feels to be accepted now, and so he is free of the shackles of his early career. Not for art, not for violence, not for self-indulgence, just for a bit of entertainment.

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I won't say I was disgusted by this movie, some kind of experimental one, but deceived, yes, certainly. We find here many elements of Takeshi Kitano's world, spirit, atmosphere, but the story puzzled me too much, and there was too much humor. I highly prefered the previous yakuza or crime films - not necessarily Yakuza - of this famous actor and director from Japan. It is only one hour long, and that's a pretty good thing. I won't recommend it to Takeshi Kitano's fans, because I guess many of them will be deceived. But if you closely check his former films, his filmography, you'll notice that there were some light hearted features too. But here, the mix up between crime and comedy disappoints me.