Punk Samurai – Third Window Films

Director: Sogo Ishii
Screenplay by: Kankurô Kudô, Kou Machida
Starring: Gô Ayano, Keiko Kitagawa, Shôta Sometani, Masahiro Higashide, Tadanobu Asano
Country: Japan
Running Time: 130 min
Year: 2018
BBFC Certificate: 15

There are times when I’m watching a non English language film which isn’t particularly gelling with me as a viewer where I wonder “Is there some kind of language barrier here? Is there some cultural thing I’m just not getting which is preventing my enjoyment of this film?” Nowhere recently have I more profoundly felt that than while watching director Gakuryû Ishii’s 2018 samurai comedy, Punk Samurai.

With a basic plot which feels lifted from any classic chanbara film, Punk Samurai follows Kake (Ayano), a young ronin attempting to weasel his way into a clan by convincing them that a religious cult is threatening to take over their lands – when this plan goes awry, the ronin gets more than he bargained for as he’s dragged into a tangled web of political machinations and manipulations which seemingly threaten the very fabric of existence.

On paper that synopsis sounds great and the film gets off to a cracking start with a vintage Toho logo and a super stylised, comic book edge which mixes animation and puppetry in with live action scenes and kicks things off with a wonderfully splashy moment of violence. Seemingly setting itself up as a black comedy, with some genuine laugh out loud moments as Kake gets gradually deeper and deeper in over his head, the film very quickly loses its footing spectacularly.

The stylised action which showed so much promise at the start vanishes, replaced by almost farcical and, at times, puerile comedy, while sub plots and characters zig zag all over the narrative, sometimes vanishing completely in the stories lack of focus. When the film lands, it lands well with a fun line in political satire, but these landings are quickly derailed by scenes that go on for way longer than they should and some absolutely guano sub-plots involving things like world devouring tapeworms and sentient monkeys. On top of all of this, there’s a rather grating narrator which, while they are eventually explained as part of the plot, manages to frequently succeed in breaking the flow of the film like someone sat next to you constantly explaining every characters actions and motivation.

All of this is genuine a shame, as the film is great to look at, with some creative and vibrant visuals that you wouldn’t normally expect from this type of film, and a final scene which looks and plays out superbly – but it feels like it’s from a completely different movie. There’s also the legacy of director Ishii, an influential figure in Japanese film-making who’s output in the 80’s and 90’s helped drive the stylised cyberpunk movement in Japan. While I’m not familiar with the directors work outside of Punk Samurai, I’d like to hope that this particular movie isn’t indicative of his past filmography. Overall, Punk Samurai feels like it wants to be a crazy, anarchic exercise in antiauthoritarianism, but it’s sadly just a bit boring. Of course, we have the question of what exactly is the Punk Samurai? Well, in keeping with most of the hodgepodge plot of this film, it’s an idea that’s introduced in the last 10 minutes, never really fully explored and then completely ignored until the credits roll.

I’m still deciding whether I didn’t somehow “get” Punk Samurai thanks to some kind of cultural barrier, but having previously enjoyed Japanese comedies like the absolutely superb One Cut Of The Dead and the brilliant and genuinely anarchic anime series One Punch Man, I’m erring towards Punk Samurai simply just being a boringly overlong, sometimes fun but overall not very funny film. It’s not entirely terrible, and there does feel like there’s an entertaining movie somewhere in here which could potentially be found thanks to some judicious trimming and removal of the aforementioned narration, but unfortunately this isn’t it. (ironically Ishii’s other recent Third Windows Release, Electric Dragon 8000V, reviewed here by David, is over half the length of Punk Samurai, coming in at only 55 minutes long – perhaps the director’s style works better in shorter bursts)

Bonus Features

• Making Of
• Go Ayano interview
• Premiere Stage Greetings
• Trailer

While the making of documentary included is fairly substantial for fans of Sogo Ishii’s past work, the selection of bonus features here are rather thin on the ground, leaving this disc feeling rather less than essential.