Tetsu (Tetsuya Watari) is a yakuza strongman who wants to go straight, but when an encounter involving his boss Kurata (Ryûji Kita) and some rival gangsters goes wrong and results in the death of an innocent girl leaving the life is no longer an option. To protect his boss’ honor he takes the blame for the lady’s assassination, becoming a nameless ‘drifter’ beholden to no one and without a home to call his own.

CRITIQUE

Filled with colorful razzle-dazzle that’s at times bewildering, Seijun Suzuki’s Tokyo Drifter is an eccentrically wild ride totally unique unto itself. A fusion of Japanese New Wave aesthesis, spaghetti westerns, Hollywood film noir and Italian horror, the movie is crazy, free-wheeling adventure that makes little sense yet still ends up being something of a kinetic kick in the pants. It’s a mind-blowing enterprise that showcases the legendary filmmaker at his loopiest, the man breaking boundaries and trying out ideas he’d ultimately take to whole new level just two films later with Branded to Kill.

It doesn’t all work, and some of it is just too loony for words. Tetsu’s gun is plastic, his relationships with women border on cartoonish and the violence is a colorful cascade of pomp and circumstance that’s borderline perplexing. The movie doesn’t even try to make sense, which is both part of its charm as well as one of its more obnoxious problems. Like a lot of the director’s films this one tends to be more style than substance, and for those looking for a gangster epic of scope and breadth this is not the title to be searching out.

But I love how romantic and full of emotion the movie is, how Tetsu’s code of honor both towards his boss and towards women guides him. I like that the movie has a sentimental streak about a mile long and isn’t afraid to showcase it, Suzuki infusing things with a melodramatic quality that’s shockingly free of saccharine and surprisingly authentic.

The movie is also stunningly designed and photographed, the director’s use of color and imagery extraordinary. The devil-may-care nature of the editing is beyond belief, and one gets the feeling that – for better and for worse – Suzuki’s energetic stylistics helped influence directors the world over. The final product is a visual feast anchored by  Watari’s magnetic, McQueen-like presence, and watching him drift from here to there is a constant marvel worth getting obsessed with.

I can’t say I find Tokyo Drifter to be as big a classic or as gigantic a landmark as so many other critics and historians seem to. At the same time, I tend to feel that way about the majority of Suzuki’s works, and while they’re certainly impressive they do sort of lack in the storytelling department in a way that is decidedly obvious. All the same, this is a film impossible to take your eyes of off, a movie that thrills and captivates for every one of its lightening fast 82 minutes. A must-see of sorts, anyone curious to know more about Japanese cinema and its freewheeling origins simply must make sure and give it a look.

THE VIDEO

Tokyo Drifter is presented on a dual-layer 50GB Blu-ray MPEG-4 AVC Video with a 2.35:1/1080p transfer. As stated in the included booklet: “This new high-definition digital transfer was created on a Spirit Datacine from a 35mm low-contrast print. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, warps, jitter and flicker were manually removed using MTI’s DRS and Pixel Farm’s PFClean, while Image Systems’ DVNR was used for small dirt, grain and noise reduction.”

THE AUDIO

Tokyo Drifter comes to Blu-ray in Japanese LPCM Mono Master Audio and includes optional English SDH subtitles. Again, from the included booklet: “The monaural soundtrack was remastered at 24-bit from the original soundtrack print. Clicks, thumps, hiss and hum were manually removed using Pro Tools HD. Crackle was attenuated using AuidoCube’s integrated workstation.”

THE EXTRAS

Extras here include:

·         Interview with Seijun Suzuki and Masami Kuzuu (12 minutes) – Interviews recorded by the Criterion Collection in 2011, the director and his assistant amusing go through their memories for what it was like to bring Tokyo Drifter to the screen and the subsequent rift it helped cause between Nikkatsu Studio and Suzuki, an impasse that would ultimately lead to the director’s firing just two films later after the production of Branded to Kill.

·         Archival Interview with Seijun Suzuki (21 minutes) – 1997 interview recorded during a retrospective of his films by the Japanese Film Foundation and the Los Angeles Filmforum staged at the Nuart Theatre.

·         Original Theatrical Trailer (3 minutes)

The Blu-ray also comes with a 12-page Illustrated Booklet featuring an essay by film critic Howard Hampton.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Fiery and unpredictable, filled with wild colors and striking images, Tokyo Drifter is a psychedelic cycle of violence melodrama difficult to forget. Criterion’s Blu-ray upgrade is stunning, and fans of both Suzuki and of the film itself will want to pick it up immediately.