SEIJUN SUZUKI (1923–2017)

CINEMA’S YAKUZA GODFATHER

Before Quentin Tarantino claimed to make gangsters cool, Japanese writer-director and popular actor Seijun Suzuki wowed audiences with his tales of the Tokyo underworld.

Suzuki’s career might have remained in the margins of Japanese cinema had the proliferation in the West of his films on VHS not made him such a cult figure, beloved by Jim Jarmusch and Tarantino, as well as Asian filmmakers such as Wong Kar-wai and Takeshi Kitano, whose own yakuza-themed films evinced a similarly cool, stylised sheen. It was a remarkable turnaround for a director once blacklisted for a decade by his own film industry.

Born in Tokyo, Suzuki was recruited into the Imperial Japanese Army in 1943. He was shipwrecked twice during World War II, both times the result of US attacks on the cargo ships he was aboard. He left the service in 1946 and over the years has reflected with a darkly comic perspective on his time in the military, even finding humour in the direst of moments. After failing an entrance exam into Tokyo University, Suzuki was informed by a friend that there was a call for entrants to the film department at Kamakura Academy. He progressed from there to a position as assistant director at Shochiku. His recollection of the period was one of mediocrity: ‘I was a melancholy drunk, and before long I became known as a relatively worthless assistant director.’ Nevertheless, he cut his teeth working with seasoned filmmakers, which allowed him the opportunity to take up a position at Nikkatsu when it reopened its doors after being dormant for nearly 15 years.

At Nikkatsu, Suzuki soon progressed from assistant director to screenwriter with Duel at Sunset (1955), followed by his directorial debut Victory Is Ours (1956). Between 1956 and 1967 he directed 40 films, an average of more than three a year. His creative breakthrough, in which his style branched out from the studio demands for a steady stream of solid if uninspired B-movies, was Youth of the Beast (1963). At this point, Suzuki’s films became less bound to narrative conventions and more attuned to wildly stylised visuals and knockabout humour, which set them apart from the work of his peers. This approach culminated in an extraordinary series of yakuza thrillers, comprising Tokyo Drifter, Fighting Elegy (both 1966) and Branded to Kill (1967). The last was made with a reduced budget – punishment for Suzuki indulging in excesses that Nikkatsu executives abhorred. Unfortunately, the result, though beloved by fans and subsequently regarded as a surreal yakuza masterpiece, was the final straw for the head of Nikkatsu, who sacked Suzuki. His legal case against the company saw him blacklisted as a director for ten years, but also led to his iconic status and transformation into an actor.

Suzuki returned to directing in 1977, employed by Shochiku. He directed an acclaimed trilogy – Zigeunerweisen (1980), Kagero-za (1981) and Yumeji (1991) – as well as Pistol Opera (2001), a follow-up of sorts to Branded to Kill, and finally the ravishing musical love story Princess Racoon (2005). Despite this, it is for his great, wildly incoherent, deliriously entertaining 1960s gangster films that he will be remembered.

“I MAKE MOVIES THAT MAKE NO SENSE AND MAKE NO MONEY.”