Mixtape Feb

The excellent new Sleigh Bells record is out (gushing review forthcoming), and one of its tracks inspired me to knock this out, ”Never Say Die”; give it a whirl, though probably should say at your own risk!

Top 10 Films of 2011

The Best Films of 2011

1. Confessions

This Japanese film actually came out in its home country in 2010 but was so shockingly good on its release in the UK that I had to include it here. Based on a hugely popular novel by Kanae Minato, Confessions tells the story of a young teacher working through her grief after the mysterious murder of her daughter. A superbly directed tale by the incredible Tetsuya Nakajima, its numerous twists and turns dovetail into one of the most stunning ending sequences in cinema. Like the other films to top my lists in recent years (2010s ‘Enter The Void’, 2009s ‘Antichrist’ and 2007s ‘INLAND EMPIRE’, along with this year’s Melancholia and Somewhere), Confessions represents a prime example of a new language in film-making. It’s one that readily embraces exploring the possibilities of photographing in digital (without resorting to the gimmick of 3D), and takes positive inspiration from the aesthetics of video-music direction (just look at the numerous scenes where songs by Radiohead, The XX and Boris drive the images to an edit that very much cuts to the beat).

2. Melancholia

Lars Von Trier’s latest film is a triumph in every sense of the word; mysterious, beautiful, ridiculous, human and perhaps most surprisingly of all, dryly hilarious. Two sisters (the wonderfully understated Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Kirst Dunst in the role of her career) come to blows and reconciliation in the fallout of a disastrous wedding. These events also just so happens to coincide with the rapidly closing in trajectory of the planet Melancholia. Von Trier peppers his film with some of the finest cinematography of 2011, whilst layering his modern parable with ingenious ambiguity (just what exactly is the opening sequence that foreshadows the film’s two main acts? Why can’t the characters leave the castle’s grounds?). Considered by its own director to be vulgar, Melancholia is an incredible companion piece to Antichrist and marks out Von Trier as a truly significant director of our times (despite his attention-seeking and very much calculated comments that had him banned from Cannes earlier this year).

3. Black Swan

Bizarrely Black Swan found its director, Darren Aronofsky, finally breaking through to the mainstream. Yet this, his fifth feature, was anything but a crowd-pleasing Hollywood studio-produced picture. Black Swan is a traditional psychological horror, deeply inspired by arthouse classics such as ‘Rosemary’s baby’ and ‘Suspiria’, successful in drawing out stunning performances from its entire cast (especially Portman and Cassel) and executing what could have been a predictable twist in a subtle and effective way. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Black Swan is the fact that it was made for very little money at all due to a massive lack of faith and funding. Yet for all of this incredible pressure on its director, it retained pure artistic control (and surprise-surprise became a career-defining hit). It is also yet another film this year to be remembered for its superb final sequence.

 

 4. Gantz

Based on one of the most beloved Japanese manga’s of all time, Gantz takes on the unenviable task of condensing countless volumes of a deeply ambiguous story and re-telling near-endless convoluted action set pieces. That it achieves this in a polished and stylishly intelligent way is to be applauded. The concept of the story of two young adults dying and then finding themselves alive but trapped in a ‘game of death’ is thrillingly told, maintaining all the creepy suspense of the manga. Gantz clearly stands on its own two feet  to act as an origin story for its second part (to be released in the UK in 2012). Not publicised at all in the UK, Gantz is a cult film desperately waiting to be discovered by its audience, and is well worth checking out!

5. Somewhere

Sofia Coppola may have lost some of her favour with the criminally-underrated Marie Antoinette, but with Somewhere, the awards began flooding in again. This is just as well because Coppola is one of the finest female film directors working today, and despite this picture failing to reach the dizzy heights of her previous two, Somewhere is still easily better than most of the other films released this year. A subtle and sleepy picture, its story contains numerous codas and analogues that are deliberately linked to Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette; placing them in a thematic trilogy not that far removed from Antonioni’s ‘malaise’ trilogy. Somewhere demands repeated viewing with these films, and feels very much like the end of this current stage of Coppola’s career.

6. Drive

7. Film Socailisme

8. 13 Assassins

9. The Skin I Live In

10. Norwegian Wood

N.B. These films are based on UK release. As of writing A Dangerous Method has yet to appear properly in UK theatres but I suspect it would have almost certainly featured highly had it been released!

Worst Film of 2011: Hanna – a dreadful attempt of aping arthouse cinema, with added music video clichés.

Missed opportunity of 2011: Sucker Punch – this remake/ripoff of Assault Girls by Mamoru Oshii had all the ingredients for a subversive strike into the heart of mainstream Hollywood but somehow came across as hopelessly boring, confused and most depressingly of all, bizarrely misogynistic!

Honourable mention: The Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Best Albums of 2011 (20-16)

Best Albums of 2011 (20-16)

20. Wounded Rhymes – Lykke Li

Lykke Li hit back at claims that she was “just another female pop singer-songwriter” with this assured and ambitious sophomore record. Often veering close to Robyn and Florence, Li manages to make her delivery her own and has clearly carved out a stronger identity than both of them through the sheer quality of her lyrics. Single ‘Get Some’ is one of the many highlights that illustrates this, with its chorus featuring one of my favourite lines this year: ‘Like the shotgun needs an outcome,
I’m your prostitute, you gon get some.’

Try – “Get Some”

19. The Loudest Engine – Howling Bells

Whilst not quite as strong as “Radio Wars”, Howling Bells have produced yet another impeccably well produced set of songs here. Frontwoman  Juanita Stein, has grown much more confidently into her role, with her voice now taking charge of proceedings as appose to hanging around underneath the band’s stylings. That’s not to say there aren’t a few times where the music dominates, indeed its great to see so many different genres being attempted here with largely great success. Hopefully, Howling Bells will continue to evolve and produce a thematically consistent record.

Try – “The Faith”

18. Velociraptor – Kasabian

What can anyone write about Kasabian? Forever condemned to be unwillingly popular with the masses and perpetually weighed-down with pointless Oasis comparisons by critics, the sad truth is that they’ll probably not make many people’s end of the year lists in 2011 through sheer snobbery. Ultimately though, I doubt they care, because Kasabian have something that most bands will never have, genuine talent and a significant stage presence. Velociraptor continues their recent trend of (at times jarring) stylistic experimentation, coupled with enough “tunes” to ensure it goes down as a very respectable piece of work. The last of a potentially dying breed of great British guitar bands, they write “traditional” singles that are both fantastically fun live and on record.

Try – “Velociraptor”

17. Eureka – Mother Mother

Mother Mother are a hugely enjoyable Canadian band, who I could (and will!) lazily label as a “happy” Metric. I was fortunately enough to catch them earlier this year playing a residency at the Knitting Factory in New York, and was blown away by how tight they were live and also by an inspired and completely brilliant Pixies cover (Gouge Away – not the easiest of their songs to attempt!). Eureka is definitely their strongest record to date and is well worth digging up, not the least because it would a massive shame if Mother Mother disappears into obscurity before finding a bigger audience.

Try – “Problems”

16. Prog-Roid – School Food Punishment

The brilliantly named School Food Punishment followed up last year’s stunning debut with the more subtle and complex Prog-Roid. Densely Japanese in tone and subject matter (the lead single is ironically called “RPG”), and unrelenting ambitious in scope, it’s hard to put in to words the appeal of such a challenging listen (complicated further by an uncharacteristic lack of any English lyrics). Perversely, if School Food Punishment were to attempt to open themselves up to a broader international audience, I’m certain they would find huge success. Every song on this album is dominated by their signature sound, one that the band have now completely perfected; it is a fantastic array of layered music that is totally unlike anything you would heard anywhere else this year.

Try- “Are”

http://player.youku.com/player.php/sid/XMjY1NDU4MjQw/v.swf

Best Albums of 2011 (15-11)

Best Albums of 2011 (15-11)

15. Crack My Bones – The Shoes
French duo Guillaume & Benjamin have produced one of the year’s best debuts, an indie-dance record that wipes the floor with the heavily delayed (and massively underwhelming) Justice album. Making a strong case to challenge Air’s throne as the new Parisian kings of electro, the tracks here are chock full of hooks and thanks to some inspired choices of guest appearances, always diverse and engaging (often the most difficult challenge for any dance act on their studio album attempts). Particularly impressive is the use of Esser (a little know East London hipster/chancer), despite potentially being a disastrous move to solely appease fashion magazines, his voice genuinely sounds fresh here and somehow perfectly complements the production in two of the stand outs “Investigator” and “Wastin’ Time.”

Try – Bored

14. The English Riviera – Metronomy
Metronomy are a strange proposition, mastermind and well-documented “difficult creative” Joseph Mount made the unusual gamble of changing his infrequent LCD Soundsystem-style performances into a full-blown live band for this record, despite his contempt for such a setup heavily hinted in the music press. Despite this though, somehow the results were mind-blowing, launching a little-know dance act fully into the mainstream and achieving this through the sheer quality of Mount’s songwriting. The fact that there is a lyric on this record about domestic abuse and that it currently rides high on countless of end of the year lists is a testament to the uniqueness of Metronomy’s achievement here and British music in general. Singles don’t really do The English Riviera any justice; this is one of the few proper “albums” to come out this year, and proves that rather than dying out, the format is screaming out with quality and can be found in the most unlikely of places.
Try – Corinne

13. Wasting Light – Foo Fighters
In recent years to admit you were a massive Foo Fighters fan was comparable to having a picture of MJ by your bedside, such was the catastrophic decline of a great (and at times gleefully heavy) alternative grunge-band into a radio-friendly MOR single churning haze. It really was like watching a car-crash in slow motion, prolonged for a whole decade. The press junket of their last record 2007′s Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace declared a return to form, but alas it was still not to be, and many concluded that unless he was at a drum kit, certified “living legend” Dave Grohl would never get his mojo back. So then, the biggest surprise of the year was Wasting Light, the album that the Foo Fighters have been promising to make since 1999’s There’s Nothing Left To Lose, and what a surprise it is. Wasting Light is not big and it’s not clever, rather it is unashamedly a nostalgic, well written, tightly performed and just plain fun rock record. Exciting punky songs such as the brilliant “White Limo” are genuinely great, and Grohl seems to have rediscovered how to write edgy romance again with standout track “Arlandria.” Much has been made of Pat Smear’s return to the band, but ultimately none of that matters because Wasting Light is a record that is all about one man’s confidence to not pander to his audience anymore and to play to his strengths instead of trying to be something he’s not. Grohl like all great musicians is a control freak, whether he wants to admit it or not, and this is collection of songs that is a true statement of vision that packs a punch.

Try – Arlandria

12. Crazy Clown Time – David Lynch
Ho ho, David Lynch’s alleged “transformation” into a musician is not without its miscalculations; indeed Crazy Clown Time is excessive in its running time by at least two songs, features a momentum crashing and hopelessly pointless middle track that spouts pretentious gibberish about the benefits of transcendental mediation (“Strange and Unproductive Thinking”), but is yet somehow a modern masterpiece. In fact David Lynch’s influence has if anything become inescapably strong over recent years, made even more surprising by the fact his last film (2006’s classic INLAND EMPIRE) was five years ago. Lynch has always been heavily involved in the music that features in his projects, with sound being vital to his aesthetic, so Crazy Clown Time is very much a natural extension of his body of work. If you have seen any of his films, this record will instantly conjure up its images to great effect. There’s a lot to enjoy here, with Lynch’s voice perhaps surprisingly fitting perfectly the jazz-inspired guitar work. The highlight however, belongs to Karen O’s storming performance in opener “Pinky’s Dream”, a sign that Lynch has plenty to offer the music world and should be encouraged to continue to experiment so spectacularly. He has been producing the superb Chrysta Bell and opened a successful nightclub “Silencio” in Paris this year.
Try – Pinky’s Dream

11. New Album – Boris
It’s been a great year for Boris, with the experimental Japanese metal band releasing not one but three records(!) and continuing to court film directors for heavy inclusion in soundtracks (such as “Confessions”). New Album was the first (and best) of 2011’s releases, with several of the tracks here appearing in alternate versions on “Heavy Rocks” and “Attention Please”. Striking an impressive balance between electro, alt rock and metal, Boris defy categorisation as they hop from genre to genre to great success. Track “Black Original” sounds about as different as they could possibly try to be, filled with ridiculously excessive production, and yet is probably my favourite song this year.

Try – Black Original

Best Albums of 2011 (10-6)

Best Albums of 2011 (10-6)

10. Hot Sauce Committee Part Two – Beastie Boys

Despite the fact that part one (?) is nowhere to be seen, the Beastie Boys latest effort needs no introduction. Easily their most accessible and hit-laden record in years; you’ll laugh as Mike D and crew rhymes about everything from sandwiches to nuclear weapons, sway as Santigold takes the mic, and even feel a smidgen of envy as Nas steals the show on the great “Too Many Rappers.” The Beastie Boys needed a record like this, after some very patchy and self-indulgent attempts in numerous years; Hot Sauce Committee reconfirms their place as a key inspiration and reference for American alternative acts. The production is seamless and the hooks seemingly never-ending, and perhaps most importantly the only “message” to be found here is that of the purely surreal and fun. All in all it harks back to the glory days of Paul’s Boutique and could arguably be said to surpass even that masterpiece.

Try – Say It

9. Bruiser – The Duke Spirit

Probably the most underrated British band in decades, the Duke Spirit are somehow now classed as “survivors” wherever they go; yet the fact they haven’t been dropped after their second record like so many other indie acts isn’t due to luck but rather to the fact that this is a band who simply work their socks off at any given opportunity. Third record Bruiser is paradoxically their tightest and most coherent work, with great musicianship and vocal performances by Lelia Moss featuring throughout. Perhaps their most ambitions work to date, there has been a deliberate decision not to fill this (their potentially final record knowing the state of the UK music industry) with NME-friendly singles, but rather to feature dark lyrics inspired by Greek tragedies and pepper the flow of things with “slow” songs (which it should be noted are anything but straightforward ballads). It would be a crying shame if The Duke Spirit disappeared after this, so do the world a favour and get hold of this or catch them at one of their (many, many, many) tour dates coming up next year.

Try – Bodies

8. Blood Pressures – The Kills

The Kills continue their upward ascendance to greatness with a superb record, eschewing the comic-book bubblegum style of “Midnight Boom,” things are altogether more dark and serious here and strangely all the more better for it.  Alison Mosshart has clearly picked up a thing or two from Jack White from her time in the Dead Weather, as the lyrics are for the most part utterly flawless, whilst her voice has never sounded better! A prime example of this is in the incredible performances she gives in “The Last Goodbye” and “Baby Says,” undoubtedly two career highlights. Similarly impressive is Jamie Hince’s production, holding things together remarkably well and creating a superb sea-shanty “wall of sound” in great hit single “Satellite,” which it should be added is another classic British pop song about heroin addiction, which few people seem to have picked up on!

Try – Nail in My Coffin

7. Skying – The Horrors

The remarkable story of the Horrors continues, with the band clearly out to prove that the enormous career 180⁰ made with 2009’s “Primary Colours,” was not some fluky aberration. Luckily for them, Skying is a hugely satisfying listen, every bit as great as their very best work and somehow different enough to make it feel like a natural progression. In some ways, the songs here manage to achieve greater heights than before, with the confidence that pervades throughout the entire record enabling the band to experiment even more with their now customary layers of sound. Self-produced and assured in its intent, Skying unashamedly features no real singles or even anything that really resembles a “song”, rather this is nearly an hour or unadulterated post-punk shoegaze. The fact something as bizarrely uncommerical and as purely musical as Skying can reach no. 5 in the UK album charts is as sure as a testament can be to the unique powers of this band.

Try – Endless Blue

6. Let England Shake – PJ Harvey

Currently riding very high indeed on a somewhat “unasked for” wave of critical adulation, PJ Harvey is currently every music critic’s best friend; something that I suspect has already started to grate her severely. In fact I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that Harvey reacts dramatically to all this fuss and releases some unlistenable instrumental or minimal techno record next (I actually really hope she does!). So, what’s all the noise about? Well PJ Harvey has always made music that is driven by her superb lyrics, regularly featuring characters of varying genders and ages, marking her out as one of the greatest songwriters of our time. On “Let England Shake,” she makes the conscious effort to solely feature characters within a time-period context (the First World War); the results are predictably excellent. On numerous songs here Harvey manages to marry her painstaking historical research with economical use of words. Music plays a key role here, with many of her usual collaborators (John Parish and Mick Harvey) helping Harvey to create a diverse range of sounds that breathes life and atmosphere into her condensed tales of fallen comrades, and a love for a homeland that has already moved on and changed. Despite all this brilliance though, as a big PJ fan, I felt that “Let England Shake” is in some ways a little too perfect for its own good. The fearlessness of her earlier work has been wholly replaced with something much more subtle and understated, which whilst amazing in itself, isn’t quite as breathtakingly and affecting as her career highlight “Is This Desire?” All in all though, a fantastic record from a national treasure.

Try – Bitter Branches

Best Albums of 2011 (5-1)

Best Albums of 2011 (5-1)

Before the final five:-

Worst Album of the Year: The King of Limbs – Radiohead

Hilariously Radiohead distributed their latest album with apparently more expectation from the band itself than their own fans for its success. Upon its sudden release, a huge delayed reaction from the music press further added to the muted reception, for it turned out that rather than being a modern classic like most Radiohead albums in years past, The King of Limbs was an indulgent, boring and bizarrely short affair (not to mention sounding pretty much identical to Thom Yorke’s solo album “The Eraser”). Clearly sensing a spectacularly over-the-top backlash from its reception, Radiohead undertook a series of publicity stunts, each more disastrous than the last, to try and drum up some fan-goodwill. The worst of these, Thom Yorke handing out a newspaper promo for the album in East London to “commuters,” has to rank as one of the strangest episodes in the band’s career. This all said, Radiohead are clearly still a brilliant band, and have just release an off-cut of TKOL which is so good (see below), that it makes you wonder what on earth the rest of the band was thinking letting Thom Yorke loose on his mac!

Honourable Mentions:

Hanna OST – The Chemical Brothers

Drive OST – VA

Ao Akua – Kiyoshi Sugo

 

Missed opportunity:  Biophilia – Bjork

It was one step forward, three steps back for Bjork after the amazing “Volta”, where were the “songs?!”

Missing In Action:

New material from Immi (http://www.immi.jp/blog/ ), The Mars Volta and Sleigh Bells was sorely missed. This said, if the new teaser single from Sleigh Bells is anything to go by (below), we’re in for a bumper 2012.

5. World of Fantasy – Capsule

Yasutaka Nakata is an unstoppable force in dance music, a prodigious record producer and label owner; he has worked with pretty much everyone in JPOP/Electro circles, and has a growing international following (as evidenced by a recent high-profile Kylie remix).  Capsule is his bread and butter though, the band where he made his name. A boy/girl duo like no other, Nakata provides the beats, production and vision, whilst vocalist Toshiko Koshijima sort of sings along. World of Fantasy is their tenth album and possibly their best; aiming to “reproduce the club night experience”, it is tour de force of excessive, exciting and addictive dance music. In fact, despite myself I don’t think there has been a day that hasn’t gone by this year where I haven’t listened to at least one track off this record, it’s a bit like a rave run by sonic the hedgehog! Perhaps its greatest moment comes in “Striker”, where you find yourself instantly wondering if Nakata was mixing the track and had a dilemma: ‘This song is missing something but I just can’t put my finger on it… That’s it, more Vuvuzelas!’

Try – Striker

4. New! – LAMA

SUPERCAR, one of the best indie bands of recent years returns in a new guise as LAMA, reuniting electro maestros Nakamura Kouji and Furukawa Miki. A superb debut record, New! brings together pulsing electro with indie anthems to great effect. It’s hard to stress how enjoyable and consistent this record is, it is undoubtedly one of the most accomplished listens this year.

Try – Spell

3. The Big Roar – The Joy Formidable

The Joy Formidable are exactly the sort of British band that used to be commonplace in the 90s, a hard working indie rock outfit from Wales that have spent years refining their live sets before even attempting their debut. Four years in the making The Big Roar is every bit worth the wait and marks out The Joy Formidable as possibly the best band in the UK today. The quality of songs like “A Heavy Abacus”, “”I Don’t Want to See You Like This” and “Cradle,” are so strong that it’s actually hard not be overwhelmed in the first few listens!

Try – A Heavy Abacus

2. Wildlife – The Icarus Line

Wildlife is the latest chapter in one of the greatest rock and roll stories of modern times. The Icarus Line are a band forever living on the fringes, they have survived endless line-up changes, drug addiction, bankruptcy, homelessness, stolen equipment, fraud and fights. Yet somehow, through all of this they have continued to make first-class music that has continued to evolve and surprise their fans. With each record, it has felt that The Icarus Line have torn up the rulebook and started again. Wildlife their forth full-length release is no exception, finding the band exploring a bluesy neo-classical style via The Stones, Iggy, Primal Scream and The Doors. This is no nostalgia trip though; a vital and condemning piece of writing, the lyrics in songs such as “All the Little Things” and “We Sick” weave a story of damaged survival amongst the unmistakably modern hubris of America. Listening to Wildlife is an experience that vividly transports you into the dark heart of L.A., and for that accomplishment alone demands attention.

Try – Tina Turner

1. Great Discovery (Dai Hakken) – Tokyo Jihen

For over a decade Shiina Ringo has single-handedly reinvented contemporary music with her outstanding albums. In the previous three years she has released one record each year which have all reached number one in the albums charts in her homecountry. Despite this monumental achievement (considering how wilfully uncommercial these albums were) virtually no one in the UK knows who she is. For just how long this can continue I’m really not sure, in fact the Guardian last year lamented her lack of recognition making a comment that pretty much sums up my own feelings: “she is my favourite Japanese artist, and I sometimes think she might be my favourite artist anywhere.” Great Discovery (under the Tokyo Incidents moniker) is a fantastic album, characteristically bouncing from genre to genre and Japanese to English. Musically the songs are outstanding, with so many standouts that it is impossible to take it all in without repeated listens, but its Ringo’s unmistakable presence that dominates proceedings, her songwriting so layered and ambiguous that there really is no one like her to compare as a reference point. Perhaps the best example of this is the last three tracks, “Go with the Wind”, “Fly Me to Heaven (any girl will do), and “Where’s Heaven?”; a trilogy of songs that on closer listen are about a woman’s suicide and explorations of gender roles in society. “Go with the Wind” switches abruptly from heavy thrashing alt rock into a shockingly dreamy, saccharine showtune that is so unrepentantly cheesy (see the last song below) that it would be easy to miss its subtext if not for its jarring title “any girl will do,” from here things get desperately dark in the shamanistic “Where’s Heaven?” Overall, Great Discovery is an amazing experience that rewards those ambitious and open-minded enough to give it a chance and can’t come more highly recommended.

Try – Les Adulterers Terribles

Kitano Special: Part 1 – Outrage

Kitano Special: Part 1 – Outrage

There are perhaps few other figures in modern cinema that are as much of an enigma as Takeshi Kitano. Know best in the West for his starring role in cult-classic “Battle Royale,” Kitano is more famous in his native country as “Beat” Takeshi, one half of the household name comic duo “the two beats.” Despite this early career as a comedian, traces of his charismatic, wise-cracking character are virtually impossible to find on first viewings of his infamous arthouse crime films. Indeed, after watching the likes of “HANA-BI” or “Sonatine,” it’s hard not to think of Kitano as borderline psychopath! His stoic, motionless grimace only apparently breaking to unload an unerringly violent depth-charge to an unfortunate cast member. However, nothing is what is first appears with Kitano, and by delving a bit deeper these two seemingly impossible to reconcile personalities (wacky and crude slapstick comic vs emotionless, violent nihilist) align into something much more complex. Ambiguous in the extreme, Kitano oeuvre of existentialist yakuza-imbued crime thrillers, sports-themed coming of age films and kitschy period-style dramas feel strangely hard to place, yet key directorial traits remain strong throughout. Unravelling the aim and meaning of his body of work takes time, but the rewards are immensely rich.

A superb starting point is “Outrage”, here is a film that could had easily been a rehash of Kitano’s iconic slow-paced crime films, but instead it is a wonderfully edited, pulsing, ensemble piece, that takes all the superb achievements from his earlier films and manages to remain consistently engaging and refreshingly unpretentious throughout. The story astutely deals with the modern clash of young and old in a rigid society of codes (allegorically the Yakuza milieu is chosen here).

 

The plot itself is difficult to strangely difficult summarise; it consists of a spurious rogue’s gallery of elder Yakuza, who outline power plays between themselves in order to gain total control. Unlike many films in the genre however, “Outrage” manages to spend equal time with the older bosses, as it does with the youthful footsoldier pawns; for whom the consequences of the older men will have a devastating impact. Despite himself though, Kitano manages to steal every scene he appears in as Otomo, a violent and uncompromising underboss beleaguered by the increasingly dangerous decisions of his direct superior. This said, with its shocking ending and a planned “Outrage 2”, it appears Kitano is trying his best to pass on this momentum to his excellent (if not slightly overshadowed) younger supporting cast. The centrepiece of the film is a set of wonderful vignettes that tell the story of how the Yakuza firstly tempt, and then violently blackmail, an African foreign ambassador into running an illegal casino for them in his country’s embassy. These scenes are as perfect as modern cinema can get, and culminate in a superb line delivered in English which acts as the overarching statement of the entire film; ‘You know you’re dealing with the Yakuza right?’

The violence is over-flowing but somehow Kitano has managed to make a film that is as kinetically entertaining, as it is brimming with socio-political commentary. When interviewed about this potential career highlight (Outrage finally marked a well-deserved commercial and critical success for Kitano), he stated, ‘We just about made an interesting film. But if I analyze it carefully then I’d just about give it a pass mark. My own rating would be 60%, so I’m aiming for Outrage 2, to make something more entertaining.” Is Kitano baring his soulful humble doubts, or is he giving an ironic statement of contempt to the media? The beauty of his work is that it’s left up to us as individuals to decide.