a review of 杀手烙印

MANNVANUARY FOUR: I recall borrowing this one from the library back in the late '90s when I was going through a Tarantino/New Wave phase and unfortunately dozed through most of the first half hour (I was a sleep-deprived college student, it happened a lot) only to find myself completely baffled by the entire last half. Now that I've watched the whole thing, I can honestly say that even when watched fully awake, much of the back half is still quite baffling indeed! But it all totally plays as kind of a wild cut-up deconstruction of a yakuza film, where the dreamlike relationship between one shot/scene and the next always feels like a surprise. The unreality of the whole last half hour reminded me of both the denouement of Miike's DEAD OR ALIVE and OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE in terms of posing the final confrontation between protagonist/antagonist as a metaphysical showdown while also framing it as a wish-fulfillment dream just before death.