Smuggler

A Grasshoppa! and Django Film production. (Worldwide sales: SDP, Tokyo, japan, japan.) Produced by Hideaki Endo, Masatoshi Yamaguchi, Kazuto Takida, Akira Yamamoto. Directed, edited by Katsuhito Ishii. Script, Ishii, Masatoshi Yamaguchi, Kensuke Yamamoto, good graphic novel by Shohei Manabe.With: Satoshi Tsumabuki, Masatoshi Nagase, Yasuko Matsuyuki, Tsuyoshi Abe, Hikari Mitsushima, Masanobu Ando, Tatsuya Gashuin, Yohachi Shimada, Kanji Tsuda, Ryushin Tei, Fumiyo Kohinata, Masahiro Takashima, Hitoshi Kiyokawa.In some manner simultaneously entertainingly crazy together with just a little underwhelming, manga adaptation "Smuggler" mingles yakuza melodrama, grotesquerie, the near-fantastical, black comedy, hyperstylized action plus much more in to a goulash which will in all probability enthrall some fans but leave others cold. Latest within the ever-unpredictable Katsuhito Ishii ("Shark Skin Guy and Peach Stylish Girl," "Party 7," "The Flavors of Tea") can be a solely Japanese genre mash-up destined for home-format appreciation with the usual suspects wherever it proves too out-there for theatrical distribs. Attracted from Shohei Manabe's 2000 graphic novel, and repping probably the best live-action link so far with Ishii's periodic anime work, pic features a "Dick Tracy"-worthy gallery more than-the-top criminal types surrounding one timid, naturally panicked regular guy. That could be Kinuta (Satoshi Tsumabuki), a not successful would-be actor who's stupidly become themselves in hock for the wrong people. To produce good on his debt, he's forced in to a job as ride-along flunky with hard-boiled quiet type Joe (Masatoshi Nagase) and crass, clownish Masako (Tatsuya Gashuin), who locate and transport questionable items with no questions asked for. They get in the heart of a convoluted crime war including Japanese and Chinese methods one boss and also the minions are destroyed within the start, as well as the spoils in the planned drug exchange are spirited away. The hired causes immediately responsible are outre hitmen Vertebre (a broken, inked, platinum-haired Masanobu Ando) and Viscera (extended-haired, shades-wearing Ryushin Tei), almost supernaturally invincible assassins who are also really quarrelsome longtime fanatics. It falls up to the more earthbound lead trio to apprehend this duo and convey these to people anxious to exact revenge. Double-crossings abound, however, as well as the fateful trip ultimately puts guileless Kinuta into the clutches of sadistic interrogator "Mad Dog" Kamashima (Masahiro Takashima). Others round the playing area include Mrs. Tanuma (Hikari Mitsushima), femme-fatale widow in the slain boss Yamaoka (Yasuko Matsuyuki), a allegedly neutral banker along with her own murky agenda and much more funhouse-exaggerated archetypes. Helmer draws a number of performance styles in the starry cast of music artist-stars, veteran screen thesps, ex-teen idols, etc., variably apt for Keystone Kops, Sergio Leone, film noir, superheroics and Tarantino-esque actioners, additionally for their alternatives throughout Japanese genre cinema. Credited onscreen as storyboarder additionally to editor and co-scenarist, Ishii devotes maximum concentrate on fancy yet intimate action setpieces that frequently push slo-mo f/x to "Matrix"-like extremes of physical impossibility. Very possible, however, will be the agonies Kinuta suffers at Mad Dog's hands, in the torture interlude that will get caught up too extended for a number of. Chameleonic in tone, deliberately drab in production design, "Smuggler" is numerous individually vivid episodes that never quite gel in to a whole. The final results happen to be stimulating, sometimes memorable, but missing a throughline of emotional engagement, they could bore slightly whilst they dazzle. It's a movie that feels inorganically produced and carried out becoming an summation of all current Japanese cult-cinema tropes. Although not spectacular in scale, tech and aspects of design are thought for the last witty detail.Camera (color), Hiroshi Machida music, Toshio Nakagawa production designer, Yuji Tsuzuki costume designer, Kuko Utsunomiya appear (Dolby Digital), Kohichi Mori. Examined at Toronto Film Festival (Evening time Madness), Sept. 10, 2011. Running time: 114 MIN. Contact the number newsroom at news@variety.com