Directed by Seijun Suzuki • 1967 • Japan
Starring Joe Shishido, Koji Nanbara, Isao Tamagawa
When Japanese New Wave bad boy Seijun Suzuki delivered this brutal, hilarious, and visually inspired masterpiece to the executives at his studio, he was promptly fired. BRANDED TO KILL tells the ecstatically bent story of a yakuza assassin with a fetish for sniffing steamed rice (the chipmunk-cheeked superstar Joe Shishido) who botches a job and ends up a target himself. This is Suzuki at his most extreme—the flabbergasting pinnacle of his sixties pop-art aesthetic.
In this interview, recorded in July 2011, director Seijun Suzuki and assistant director Masami Kuzuu recall the production and release of BRANDED TO KILL.
This interview with BRANDED TO KILL star Joe Shishido was recorded in July 2011.
The following interview with director Seijun Suzuki was recorded during a retrospective of his work by the Japan Foundation and Los Angeles Filmforum at the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles in March 1997.
