1967: Koroshi na rakuin (Branded to Kill)

One hears this film got director Seijun Suzuki's carreer into trouble, and it's not hard to see why. The studio were probably hoping for just another film about a yakuza killer; what they got was something in a style somewhere between experiment and insanity. The film has lots of nice little ideas, but in my view, sometimes Suzuki is directing too much (instead of going for the simple solution), there is too little narrative glue to hold the whole thing together and it feels chopped up. Recommended for fans of David Lynch. (6.5)