Tokyo Drifter

Ratings & Reviews

ejonline

My responses to Suzuki's movies really depend upon which order I saw them in. Tokyo Drifter is the first of his movies that I came across. I found it a bit intoxicating in the way that it threw typical cinematic grammar to the wind and soaked in the bold color schemes and seemingly Brechtian acting style that he was going for. In subsequent viewings of his other movies he seems simply incoherent and thus, less fun.

sabrina

10/10 for mise en scene

Nick Schwab

Uninviting in its talky and dull gangster politics that connect the action scenes, while its characters and story never deeply arouse the emotions-- even despite its garish, eye-candy colors and jazzy-pop score-- more than for a surface-level connection. It's cool in its look and feel often, but while style can sometimes fill in for substance, it too has to elicit deeply felt emotions. It doesn't here.

Ruiz Buñuel

Candy is bad for you.

Denis Zordan

3,5

Fabio Osvaldo Carta

8/10

cineholic

5/10. Though the production design is lovely and many of the colors pop, TOKYO DRIFTER is style without much substance: what exists of a story is nigh incomprehensible.

Latias

Short as it is the film is still too long for its story (slow pace). Bold colors to show personalities of characters (innovative for the time) and render various atmospheres. Like comic strip thus surprised to hear that Sutsuki never used storyboards! The discussion among 3 people near the end is really Kubric.

Dr. Q

This is a great movie, the sound, the imagery, the colors, the dialoge, sure, some would say its a bit soppy, but that's an element of style here

Lex Lucas

Pure fun in this yakuza ballad with total freedom in colors

OLIVER-J

rewatched this one a couple weeks back. RIP to a true trailblazer.

Balthaz21

3,5

FISCHER

Peu importe l'intrigue, la trame policière étant transgressée par une mise en scène fascinante, déconcertante de trouvailles visuelles et stylistiques. Une oeuvre essentielle en avance sur son temps... www.cinefiches.com

Amadeus Magnus

Great song.

Aaron Dillenbeck

The colors... oh god the colors!! Great cinematic eye. Trades substance for style and it totally works.

Chris

super stylish and occasionally cool, but the great moments are too few and far in between, 7/10

marco

jim jarmusch's ppunk

patchwork

http://jonrafman.com/tokyocolordrifter/

Kevin Costner

4,5

Ozu_Teapot

(4)

Steve G.

Well plotted but I slowly grew tired of the multitude of quirks here and lost almost complete interest by the end. Looks great but that's not nearly enough for me.

Jeremiah Johnson

I like Seijun's disregard of movie logic, sacrificing plot for cool action sequences because we have seen it all before and Seijun fucking knew better than repeat it. The protagonist is so cool he whistles the movie's theme song. EDIT: Watched it again. A gorgeous 35mm print. A closeup on cinemascope image is a beautiful thing.

Matthew Martens

Another peak-period product of Suzuki's visual design-addled, genre-blending mind, this bildungsroman follows a reformed Yakuza's violence-spangled ascent toward the higher drift, one that abjures apathy and loyalty equally, embracing the provisional nature of bonds formed in conditions of permanent transition without sacrificing passion and care. Still, it amounts to a far better kaleidoscope than character study.

Christopher M. Jones

everything that's not a brawl or a gunfight is an incoherent mess. the Nikkatsu Noir house style is not complimented well by dense internal mob politics