Review: AC/DC once said “It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll”. Well, what if you don’t want to rock and roll? What if you’re reason for living is to achieve the ultimate position in a society of ruthless, yet stylish, murderers for hire? I’ll tell you what you do. You put on you’re favorite flamboyant kimono, grab your “tools of the trade” with the extra clip, and kick the doors in with both barrels blazing.

I’m not sure whether 80 year old Seijun Suzuki should be “put out to pasture” or be given all the funding he can possibly handle to crank out as many films as possible in his remaining years. In his latest venture, PISTOL OPERA, the man has attempted to accomplish something extraordinary that’s quite unheard of in any field. He’s taken his own 1967 yakuza classic BRANDED TO KILL, a story of a man struggling to reach the pinnacle of his chosen profession while fighting to stay one step ahead of the people who want him dead, and reworked it into an even more bizarre, psychedelic, ultra stylized, mish-mash of surrealistic sequences and color saturated landscapes.

A certain amount of consideration has to be made when viewing a film by Suzuki. You’re dealing with a man who’s been infamous for decades as playing by his own set of rules, making films that pay more attention to pushing the envelope of style and pop culture than delivering a storyline that would sit well with the often dim witted, yet always ravenous appetites of mainstream movie goers. Well, if pushing the envelope and testing the conventions of modern day cinema was what he was shooting for, then he’s succeeded in spades.

Much of this film plays out more like an accumulation of scenes in an experimental play than any choreographed film. The characters make a minimal amount of interaction with the world around them and the settings end up becoming more of an afterthought or stage-like back drop than an actual living breathing part of the film. That’s not to say that the settings aren’t interesting to look at. Suzuki’s trademark sense of color is here in abundance but the environments ultimately feel as though they were placed there solely for the purpose of giving Suzuki’s bizarre characters a platform in which to interact.

The aforementioned characters, and their aberrant demeanors, are actually one of the stronger aspects of the film. Like something out of a comic book, each individual shines in his or her own way, breaking out and driving the film forward towards its final conclusion. If one can manage to find oneself immersed into the quirky display of each key player then you’ll most likely be appreciating the point that Suzuki intended in the first place. Be warned though, there was more than one instance where this reviewer found himself struggling to stay interested in what seemed to be a somewhat repetitious cycle of kill or be killed. Once again though, it is Suzuki’s unorthodox style that both saves and ruins this film.