Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on December 2011
This fascinating film by auteur Amir Naderi, an Iranian-born filmmaker who has been working in the US for decades, is extremely difficult to review, as it is simultaneously gripping and disappointing. It combines the story of filmmaker Shuji (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a man who turns into a human punching bag, with a manic love of film. Shuji’s brother had worked for, and borrowed money from, the yakuza to finance Shuji’s films and this led to his death. Now the director must pay back a debt of over ¥12 million. To do so he turns himself into a literal whipping boy, absorbing unrelenting beatings at a gang headquarters for cash. Naderi, making his first film in Japan, also works in, via his cinema-loving protagonist, many of the great films of all time, going so far as to use clips from them. On the plus side this is an interesting study of violence and commitment, but the negatives are sadly numerous. First of all, the yakuza setting is more than a little implausible and the other main characters, like sympathetic barmaid Yoko (Takako Tokiwa) and kindly tencho Hiroshi (Takashi Sasano) are wildly unrealistic. What’s worse though, is that Naderi includes clips of some of the most important films ever made, and rather than a touching homage this out-of-context use drains them of all their emotion and power. Well, an interesting failure is better than a boring success. (120 min)
