Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards! (1963)

Director: Seijun Suzuki

Notable Cast: Jo Shishido, Tamio Kawaji, Reiko Sassamori, Nobuo Kaneko, Kinzo Shin, Naomi Hoshi, Asao Sano, Yuko Kusunoki, Kotoe Hatsui, Hiroshi Hijikata

Despite the almost cult cinema God-like status that he has risen to in the last handful of years, not all Seijun Suzuki films are outstanding works of art perfection. He certainly has moments where he gets there with the pop influence of Tokyo Drifter, the strangeness of Branded to Kill, or the noir tones of Take Aim at the Police Van. Of course, since he was a gun for hire director for Nikkatsu for most of his career, his filmography is going to be slightly hit or miss. For starters, let’s look at the latest Arrow Video Blu Ray release for the hilariously titled, Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards!. Now this film already has a fairly enthusiastic following, which is why it’s received multiple home video releases even in the US over the years, but despite some charismatic elements to the film, it’s ultimately a mixed bag of execution. Where some pieces of the film soar, others completely stumble through the end. It leaves the film feeling a bit too uneven to reach the heights of the best of Suzuki’s career, but it still features some charming and fun aspects for fans to enjoy.

Seijun Suzuki: The Early Years Vol. 2 - Border Crossings: The Crime and Action Movies (2018)

Director: Seijun Suzuki

Even though Seijun Suzuki has been heavily recognized as a key artistic figure in Japanese cinema that influenced some of the great modern directors, so many of his films have been left in the shadows of time for western audiences. More recently, Arrow Video has really stepped up in this regard by digging in and getting some of his classics and overlooked early films the releases they desperately deserved. Not only did they drop the iconic and artsy Taisho Trilogy, but they have gathered together ten of his early films into two box sets (limited to 1500 copies each) for collectors. For the second volume, under the title of Seijun Suzuki: The Early Years Vol. 2 - Border Crossings: The Crime and Action Movies, Arrow gathers together a slick mixture of differently styled films to cover a lot of the tones and style that Suzuki used as a hired gun for the Nikkatsu studio through the late 50s and early 60s. This review will briefly cover the five films in this set, but for those who are even remotely fans of Nikkatsu, Suzuki, or cinema from this era of Japan then this is a no-brainer purchase.

Zigeunerweisen (1980)

Director: Seijun Suzuki
Notable Cast: Harada Yoshio, Fujita Toshiya, Otani Naoko, Okusu Michiyo, Maro Akaji

Zigeunerweisen is quite the enigmatic film. It's simple, yet incredibly complex, defying any concise description you try to pin on it. It is surreal, but also mundane; it is slow, but endlessly fascinating. These ambiguous feelings are the best way to describe the film, as odd as that may sound; Zigeunerweisen is the epitome of the film you have to see to understand what it is. Even then it refuses to completely reveal itself, but like any piece of art, this is a large part of its charm. Zigeunerweisen is both a departure from previous Seijun Suzuki films and the culmination of what had come before. After his firing from Nikkatsu in 1967, Suzuki spent many years blacklisted and floundering, and it was Zigeunerweisen that ended this period. It was nominated for nine Japanese Academy Awards and won four, and it began the critical re-assessment of the iconoclast director.

Take Aim at the Police Van (1960)

NO ‘U’ TURN:
MOVING FORWARD WITH SEIJUN SUZUKI’S TAKE AIM AT THE POLICE VAN

Director: Seijun Suzuki
Notable Cast: Michitaro Mizushima, Mari Shiraki, Misako Watanabe, Shinsuke Ashida, Shoichi Ozawa, Ryohei Uchida, Toru Abe, Tatsuo Matsushita, Saburo Hiromatsu, Reiko Arai

Seijun Suzuki is one of those directors who was able to add a lot of depth to what should have been a straight forward film. Considering his status, particularly in his early career as a gun for hire for the Nikkatsu studio, it’s in a lot of his early films that one can see his strengths as a director in more subtle ways. One of those films is the occasionally overlooked Take Aim at the Police Van. While having a release through the Criterion Collection in the US certainly makes a statement to the sly artistic merits of the film, Take Aim at the Police Van is a film that is not nearly as upfront with its style as Suzuki would be known for by the end of his innovative career. The thoughtfulness of design is there though and even as the film goes through the motions with its noir meets yakuza film tone, there’s a lot of intriguing layering that cinephiles will definitely appreciate.