PISTOL OPERA (Japan, 2001)
Directed by: Suzuki Seijun
Starring: Makiko Esumi, Sayoko Yamaguchi, Kan Hanae, Kenji Sawada, Tomio Aoki

Your brain is a swimming pool, and 78-year-old director, Suzuki Seijun, wants to jump in and splash around. PISTOL OPERA is the legendary Seijun's first movie in ten years, an all-female remake of his classic Branded to Kill (1967) - the movie that got him fired from Nikkatsu studios because it MADE...NO... SENSE!!!! The blacklisted bad boy of the ‘60s studio system, who made jaw-dropping head trips lightly disguised as gangster flicks, most people thought Suzuki Seijun would never make another movie. And for almost ten years he hasn't. But here he is again, ready to latch onto your skull and gum away at your optic nerve.

Stray Cat is the #3 killer in the Killer's Guild, sort of a business association for assassins. Ranked from 1 to 100, Guild members spend all their time jockeying for better ratings and thinking up cool names for themselves like “Painless Surgeon” and “Hundred Eyes.” But someone in the elite Top Ten is angling for the coveted #1 spot and paranoia chokes the world like thick yellow fog as swimming pools and Kabuki theaters turn into career opportunities for a cast of unhinged, drama queens with guns. Jo Shishido's chipmunk-cheeked #3 killer from Branded to Kill is back, his addiction to randy sex and freshly-steamed rice still going strong. Played here by Mikijiro Hira, the old #3 limps around on his crutches, the honorary mascot of the Killer's Guild, given the affectionate ranking of #0. (Jo Shishido was approached to reprise his character, Director Seijun says, "...but somehow it didn't happen. You should ask the producer about that.") But his jet set cool has been rendered obsolete by the bevy of cold-blooded women and psycho killers on psychotronic display in PISTOL OPERA.

Like a reproach to the stark, all-male black and white world of Branded, PISTOL OPERA explodes in glorious, giddy Technicolor. This time, women are the center of the world, with the men relegated to the role of cannon fodder. Drunk on style, PISTOL OPERA is eye-blistering nonsense, telepathically broadcast straight outta Suzuki's brainpan like be-bop delirium. As the director says, “When you become over 60, everything you do is okay with everyone. You can do whatever you want.” He's got something there: the most important Japanese movies of 2000 and 2001, PISTOL OPERA and Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale, were directed by men in their 70s (Fukasaku - 71; Seijun - 78).

Blithely free of introspection, Suzuki's kaleidoscopic brainboggler is awash in shrieking primary colors, treating narrative logic to a sound over-the-knee spanking, and climaxing with a funhouse showdown featuring a gaggle of Butoh dancers, little girls eating puff pastries, and Orwellian machinations that make JFK conspiracy theorists look well-adjusted. Moviemaking as an end unto itself, this is the aesthetic apocalypse, dressed to kill and throwing a fashion fit outside your door, waiting for you giggle yourself to death. It's the movie that answer the eternal question: why do we have eyes? To watch PISTOL OPERA, of course.