Tattooed Life – Radiance

Director: Seijun Suzuki
Screenplay: Kei Hattori, Kin’ya Naoi
Starring: Hideki Takahashi, Kotobuki Hananomoto, Masako Izumi, Hiroko Itô, Kayo Matsuo, Hôsei Komatsu, Seizaburô Kawazu
Country: Japan
Running Time: 86 min
Year: 1965
BBFC Certificate: TBC

Seijun Suzuki is a Japanese director who is partly famous for being fired from Nikkatsu after making the bizarre (but superb) Branded to Kill in 1967. It wasn’t a case of this particular film immediately angering the studio though, it was more a case of it being the straw that broke the camel’s back. He’d been working at the studio since the mid-50s and, partly out of growing bored of the studio system and partly because he wanted his films to stand out from the slew of cookie-cutter B-movies he was tasked with making, Suzuki gradually began to experiment with unique stylistic flourishes and off-beat directorial touches.

This playfulness resulted in many enjoyably unusual B-movies but the studio heads weren’t so keen. They weren’t all flops but they were hardly raking in money and Suzuki wasn’t always acting within the boundaries the studio had set.

Whilst Suzuki had been putting his stamp on films from a relatively early stage, it was reportedly 1965’s Tattooed Life which first prompted Nikkatsu to issue the director with a warning, claiming he’d “gone too far”. Four films later, he would be fired.

Radiance Films are releasing Tattooed Life on Blu-ray. I’ve loved everything I’ve seen from Suzuki so far, so didn’t hesitate to get my hands on a copy of this and my thoughts follow.

Tattooed Life is a ninkyo eiga (or honourable yakuza film) that follows the tumultuous lives of two brothers. Tetsu (Hideki Takahashi), the elder, is a hardened yakuza hitman, while Kenji (Kotobuki Hananomoto), the younger, is a sensitive artist. Tetsu is keen for his brother to go to art school and not follow him into his dangerous profession. Their world is upended, however, when Kenji steps in to save his brother from an assassination attempt.

As they embark on a desperate escape, the brothers find themselves in a coastal town where they find work as labourers so as to earn enough money to leave for Manchuria. However, their past inevitably catches up with them, leading to a violent confrontation that tests their bond and forces them to confront the consequences of their choices. Also causing trouble is the fact that Kenji develops an infatuation with the labour camp boss’ wife, Masayo (Hiroko Itô).

As with many ninkyo eiga, Tattooed Life delves into themes of brotherhood (both literal and figurative), loyalty, and the inescapable grip of the yakuza underworld. However, as mentioned in my introduction, Suzuki makes the film very much his own.

He throws in numerous odd little touches, like having the initial assassination attempt occur between the drivers and passengers of two rickshaws. Another flourish sees the repeated arrival of a suspicious character highlighted by his wearing bright red shoes, a quirk that is given an extra twist later on when it’s revealed that two characters wear such shoes.

The score is quite unusual too, using some odd instrumentation from the era (I think a harpsichord is often used alongside a soprano saxophone, or that’s how it sounded to me).

The cinematography also has some playful touches throughout but it’s the film’s finale when the gloves come off and Suzuki goes all out to create a hyper-stylised, boldly colourful feast for the senses. It’s a truly gobsmacking and ultra-cool sequence that must be seen to be believed, making stunning use of sliding paper doors, movement and silhouettes.

There’s a lot of talk about style when discussing the work of Seijun Suzuki but the storytelling is highly effective here too. It’s played quite large, veering into melodrama but I had no problem with this and was swept up by the high emotions in play. It made the great stylistic shift in the film’s finale all the more powerful as a key dramatic incident kickstarts it.

So, overall I found Tattooed Life to be a finely crafted, occasionally quirky melodrama which builds to a strikingly stylish finale. It’s a real treat for fans of Seijun Suzuki and Japanese genre films in general.

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