Feb. 9 movie: Branded to Kill. I debated whether to include this one on the movie list, since I wasn't feeling well and fell asleep about 1/2 hour before the end. But I think I saw enough for it to count.
I was really looking forward to this movie, having loved Tokyo Drifter by the same director (Seijun Suzuki). Alas, Branded to Kill lacked the style that I enjoyed so much in Tokyo Drifter (super-saturated colors and a space age go-go sensibility). Also, Branded to Kill was a bit hard to follow due to many abrupt and seemingly random transitions. In fact Georg and I spent most of the movie saying to each other, "How'd she get there? Weren't they someplace else? Wait, they're back now. Huh?" I think it was a deliberate stylistic choice, but at times it came across a bit Ed Wood-ish -- people getting into a car for a short drive at night, and arriving in a different car during the day. It was that level of disorienting.
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I fell asleep during the middle half hour of this movie ("Why are they fighting?" I asked when I woke up, "Weren't they just doing it?"), and I can vouch for the ending being just as baffling as every other part of the movie. It does involve a great shoot-out scene where characters inexplicably teleport from one part of the set to the other. And then a building blows up for no apparant reason.
I liked the system of ranking killers, though. That should be introduced more widely.