Sydney Pollack Week: The Yakuza

Subete no kon’nichwa!   Welcome to the continuation of Sydney Pollack Week and have we hooked quite a whopper today.  A story of ill-gotten gains, family struggles, honor and the willingness to follow through, this film marks for an interesting dive into Western and Eastern culture clash.  So shoes off, serve the one next to you and do not hog the spicy tuna roll.   This is The Yakuza.

That is not a happy camper.

Spoilers are as much a gift as a curse…

George Tanner (Brian Keith of Arrowhead, The Parent Trap, The Quest, Hooper, Sharky’s Machine and Hardcastle and McCormick) runs the L.A. docks and foolishly got into bed with the Yakuza (Japanese Mafia), fell behind on payments and now they demand tribute or they will kill his daughter.  Tanner calls his old army buddy Harry Kilmer (Robert Mitchum of Undercurrent, El Dorado, Out of the Past, Cape Fear, River of No Return and The Big Sleep, a private eye that is well immersed in Japanese culture.  Tanner is counting of the life debt of one Tanaka Ken (Ken Takakura of The Path of the King, Golgo 13, Mushuku, The Homeless, Hakkodasan and Black Rain) to lead Kilmer around, defeat the Yakuza and save the girl.   Dusty (Richard Jordan of Rooster Cogburn, Logan’s Run, The Mean Season, Alibis and The Hunt for Red October), Tanner’s personal bodyguard will be traveling with Kilmer as well but he looks to be no more than a gunsel.  Like the man said, “The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.”

Boomstick plus one!

Yeah two guys will be doing all this.  Infiltration, sabotage and a high count of homicide is on the order of the day.    I will also assigning Harry Callahan, John McClain and possibly Martin Riggs for this otherwise insane plan!

To abide an old debt to Tanner, Kilmer must go back to Japan and over 20 years of hurt, remorse and obligation.  During the occupation of Japan, MP Kilmer discovered a black market purchasing of American medical supplies by Eiko Tanaka (FYI Tanaka is the most common surname in Japan.  Think Smith or Jones) who he fell in love with, they romance and he even looks after her daughter Hanako as if she were his own, but for reasons a dopey Western round eye cannot fathom, she cannot marry him.  Sad and bitter Kilmer went back to the states, worked as a cop and then a shamus.   Tanaka Ken is former Yakuza and now a brilliant swords master teaching Kendo in a prestigious institute Kendo Hall in Kiyoto.

This film is a hybrid of Japanese discipline, honor with a smattering of American cynicism.  The story is simple yet elegant, the camera work from day to night is dolly tracked, handheld, long crane shots  and decent pan zooms of which is all hallmarks of a Sydney Pollack movie all shot on a Panavision anamorphic lens 35mm.   With solid collaborations with writers Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, American Gigolo, Raging Bull and Affliction) and Robert Towne (Chinatown, Heaven Can Wait, The Firm, Mission: Impossible and Mission: Impossible II) this flick has as much action as there is dialogue. 

Blam!

A little side note, I started snickering seeing one of the Yakuza reading a Manga.  Comic books are for kids, buddy.     This thriller is bloody, gunfights and katana a plenty.  This is an interesting mesh of the cultures of honor and violence that both the Americans and the Japanese are capable; it also shows heart, spirit and the willingness to overcome great obstacles.   This film deserves the same restoration love that Peckinpah's The Getaway and Friedkin's French Connection did.   I find no faults in this film with the exception it is now over.

Before They Were Stars: Magic

Well folks we finish off Before They Were Stars week with a Richard Attenborough flick from 1978.  The center or crux of this film is around a ventriloquist by the name of Corky Withers.   You may know him better as Sir Anthony Hopkins.   Gather around the idjit box and stuff your face with munchies.  This is Magic.

Spoilers tried…tried…and failed!

Actor/producer/director Richard Attenbourough (Oh! What a Lovely War, Young Winston, A Bridge Too Far, Gandhi, A Chorus Line and Chaplin) intentionally purchased writer William Goldman’s screenplay based on his same titled novel (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, Heat, The Princess Bride, Misery and Chaplin) in order to use the revenue for making Gandhi.   Until he really sat down and read the screenplay. 

 While the main focus is a fumbling magician’s assistant named Corky (Sir Anthony Hopkins of Othello, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Desperate Hours, Silence of the Lambs, Dracula, Chaplin and Legends of the Fall) and summoning the courage to go solo he bombs quicker than a sober guy on open mike night. (Seen it and it is not pretty)   The crowd mocks his act and Corky becomes a little unhinged and starts insulting the audience.  His mentor tells him he needs a real gimmick so a year passes since that conversation apparently and Corky is now seen with a dummy named Fats and what do you know, he is surprisingly good and starts making a name for himself in the entertainment circuit.   Talent agent Ben Greene (Burgess Meredith of Batman, Mr. Novak, The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, Rocky, Clash of the Titans, Gloria and Grumpy Old Men) seeks Corky out and tells him he is ready for the big time!  I’m thinking Ed Sullivan or Johnny Carson myself.  Corky is ecstatic until he learns he will need to undergo a medical examination and Corky gives some half-assed excuse about fear of success and runs off the Catskills.   You see kids; Fats gave Corky more than confidence on stage.   

Corky stays at a hotel run by his old high school crush Peggy Ann Snow (Ann-Margret of Bye Bye Birdie, Viva Las Vegas, The Train Robbers, Tommy, The Villain, Twice in a Lifetime and Grumpy Old Men) who seems to be stuck in a loveless marriage and takes to Corky’s attention as it gives her life again.   Seriously the way Peggy and Duke act, you know they are dreaming of ending one another across the breakfast table. Peggy’s husband Duke (Ed Lauter of Dirty Little Billy, King Kong, The White Buffalo, B.J. and the Bear, Loose Shoes and Mulholland Falls) starts to think Corky may be after his gal and is getting a bit steamed under the collar.  This is not your typical love triangle as so much a quadrangle in that oddly enough Fats is not thrilled with Corky going out on his own either. 

 From what I gather there is no supernatural element in this that Fats is somehow possessed but in actuality it is all in Corky’s mind.   His unbearable self-loathing causes him to doubt his worth by acting out with Fats.   Ben attempts to get ahold of Corky again and pleads with him to get some help.   The best scene in this film is still has to be Corky putting Fats down for 5 minutes.  Sweat just trickles down his face and he cannot help but rush over to Fats yet again.

Now while the horror is a bit predictable when it occurs, it is fascinating watching Corky just losing his mind and soul a little at a time and Peggy really is the emotional lynchpin to this film.  Perhaps if we never saw Corky lose it on stage it would be more of a psychological thriller.  Not a great movie but overall a sound one.   A competent triumph from cast and crew by my account and I deem it noteworthy.