Branded to Kill 1967

Old 1967 black and white japanese movie, sold as something so weird and impossible to understand that the director was fired from his company. Worth it ? I'm not sure. The end part is weird in a good way, but the most of it looks like lazy editing of a low on budget movie that could not shoot the whole thing.

In the beginning it's not that difficult to understand what happens, it just looks like maybe one scene in three made the cut, even in the middle of action scenes. So yeah, you have to fill in the gap yourself. Some are easy, for instance Hanada sees a shooter in a building and enters it with a gasolien can, then immediate cut to him exiting the whole building in flames and the shooter jumping from the window. So did the shooter just let him calmly enter the building, spread the whole three floors with gasoline, then light it without doing anything, and waits until the whole thing is on fire before thinking of getting out ? Maybe ? Other times, just before what looks like a shooting confrontation, it immediately cuts to the characters in their car, already far from where the previous scene was.

Then follows a indeed very weird series of relationships scene sometimes with his wife, sometimes another woman. It's a little disturbing to watch today, it clearly suggests that your wife will be a little more willing to have sex after you've smacked her in the face a few tims... It's also mixed and having the same jump cuts.

After a while there's at least a scene that advances the story. Hanada makes a mistake during a mission and kills a bystander. Starting from there other assassins try to kill him, his wife has been instructed to kill him too. That's when it starts to be really weird not just by how scenes are cut.

First there's a kind of tragic love story with the second woman. He seems obsessed by her but can't have her. The storytelling style makes it hard to follow and it as little interest.

Then there's the confrontation with the n°1 killer that comes for him. This is the weird in a good way part. #1's style is psychological supremacy over his opponents and it turns out very weird, borderline stupid, like a scene where instead of staying face to face with their guns pointed at each other, they decide to do it 'as if', put their guns on the table and just do everything together for a while, including going to the toilets.

This final part is very original and interesting, but it's a little hard to get there, specially the whole middle half of the movie.