The 2024 Yakuza offering Broken Rage is either Takeshi Kitano’s comedy of the absurd, both the first and the second part, or his swan song. Kitano has always been one of the busiest performers around. He plays all the parts: Actor, Director, Writer. Although he stays away from editing and producing on this latest film.
It follows a similar theme as the 2005 film Takeshis’ *A surreal film that has the actor, in essence, meeting himself.* Again, it plays as a parody of his “real life” but turns dark in the telling.
Broken Rage starts as a “straight” depiction of Takeshi as hitman, his reel life, for a pair of crooked cops after he is identified. That is part one. Part two then has the exact same plot but played for laughs.
The Cast
Takeshi Kitano is Nezumi (Mouse).
Tadanobu Asano is Inoue. (A crooked cop.)
Takashi Nishina is the Coffee Shop Manager.
Nao Ômori is Fukuda.
Jun Akiyama is Undercover Investigator.
The stories
This is where I usually give the basic outlines of a film’s story. In Broken Rage, though, I am deviating from this practice. Just look at the opening paragraphs about the film, the final one gives enough of an outline to suffice.
Broken Rage could be a final segment of the Outrage trilogy. It could also be a final chapter to a long career doing Yakuza films.
Part one:
Broken Rage looks serious here but it is not really. It appears to be poking fun at Kitano’s past characters in these types of films. Take Hana Bi (1997) for example. It is a different type of Kitano film, his character is a cop, but it follows the same formula. The cop, or Yakuza in a different film, makes poor choices. His violence is fast and overwhelming. He is stoic and final.
However, the formula works against Mouse here. He walks in and kills his targets and then walks out. In previous Kitano films, no one recognizes him. He is not paraded in front of a witness and identified. In Broken Rage he is picked out of the lineup and put to work by two cops.
*One of whom is the brilliant Tadanobu Asano. I first saw this actor in Ichi the Killer (2001) and then in the 2003 Kitano film The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi. American audiences remember him better as one of Thor’s mates in the Avengers’ tales. I am a complete fan of his work.*
This part of the film can be seen as a sly satire of Kitano’s own previous body of work.
Part Two:
Broken Rage in this second part does head straight into comedic heaven here. Mouse is accident prone, incapable of doing the jobs he is hired for and he cheats at musical chairs.
Sure he kills the first mark but screws up and kills the wrong target on his second outing. He is inept and the comedy is over the top. It works but it begs the question, is Kitano ready to hang up his auteur cap?
Who cares
Regardless of what the answer is, who cares? Beat Takeshi still captivates whenever he is on screen. His stoicism and demeanor generally takes over whatever scene he is in.
So despite the confusion about just what Kitano is trying to say here, it still entertains and fills that empty space that exists when he does not produce films.
The Verdict
Broken Rage still hits a solid 4.5 stars out of the 5 star system. I was a tad confused with the segments that featured lines of “WTF is going on?” type entries along with one’s complaining about the low budget of the feature. Tbis resulted in the loss of a half star.
The film can be seen on Prime. Go and check it out. See what you think. Is it up to his usual standard or not?
the trailer
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