Branded to Kill

“When Japanese New Wave bad boy Seijun Suzuki delivered this brutal, hilarious, and visually inspired masterpiece to the executives at his studio, he was promptly fired. Branded to Kill tells the ecstatically bent story of a yakuza assassin with a fetish for sniffing steamed rice (the chipmunk-cheeked superstar Joe Shishido) who botches a job and ends up a target himself. This is Suzuki at his most extreme—the flabbergasting pinnacle of his sixties pop-art aesthetic.”
— Criterion.com

“Seijun Suzuki’s Branded to Kill is a cinematic masterpiece that transcends its genre. It is about as close to traditional Yakuza pictures as Godard’s Alphaville is to science fiction.”
— Composer John Zorn

Film Details

Country: Japan

Language: Japanese

Year: 1967
Running time: 91 min
Format: DCP
Director: Seijun Suzuki
Producer: Kaneo Iwai
Cinematographer: Kazue Nagatsuka
Editor: Matsuo Tanji
Print Source: Janus Films

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