Japanese
filmmaker Seijun Suzuki opens his 1963 yakuza actioner with a literal
bang as sharply dressed gangsters battle on a dark backcountry road in
the Tokyo outskirts. Bullets fly. Autos careen off the road. Bodies
pile up. A glorious screen-engulfing car explosion ends this
out-of-control melee but kick-starts a dirty Rock & Roll number.
Over this destructive culmination slams in blood-red Japanese script
the nails-hard title: Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards! This
nihilistic display of dangerous cool is the perfect stage setting for
the mix of break-neck violence, genre satire, postwar commentary, dark
humor, musical numbers and Jazz Pop tunes that follows.
Longtime Suzuki
collaborator Jo Shishido stars as a cocky amateur detective determined
to take down the yakuza from the inside and earn respect from the legit
police force in the process. Worming into a gang, he gains their trust
and learns their secrets as his true identity teeters towards
revelation. You can guess how everything turns out, but that’s the
point. Despite its mania, Detective Bureau 2-3 sticks to conventions.
As a Nikkatsu Studios contract director, Suzuki was expected to do so,
while working assembly-line fashion to deliver no-frills B-films on
time and on budget. But like his Detective Bureau hero, Suzuki found a
way to work within the system while extravagantly deviating from it.
The style brought him worldwide cult fame, but also led to a firing
from Nikkatsu in 1968, a breach-of-contract lawsuit and an eventual
10-year blacklist. Detective Bureau 2-3 is an incredible snapshot of
Suzuki just before this turmoil, working at full artistic power within
confines that would soon bring him down. Grade: A
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