User Reviews

I saw this movie as the last movie during the Rotterdam Film Festival, and was positively surprised by a story of values, moral, and ethics in the Japanese mobster scene without getting top-heavy. Even though action can be slow by European and US standards, this gives the movie that extra vibe that you can't expect from the next Lethal Weapon.

This could be a decent introduction into Japanese cinema, in the sense that it's not too heavy on the Japanese side, but still something a US director would never do (especially the slowed down shooting of one of the main characters leaves an impression).

8/10

In the mould of Kinji Fukusaku's yakuza films from the Seventies, the formula is usually that of a rogue frustrated by the rigid structures of organised crime. The ensuing power struggle brings with it a lot of characters, often resulting in confusion as to who's who, who's working with who and who just got stabbed in the melee.

Takashi Miike has more than dabbled with the yakuza genre, but more from an angle of extreme violence and gore than hierarchical struggles. His 2001 "Agitator", however, while having its fair share of extreme violence goes more for the straight-and-narrow of yakuza films, though manages to steer it away from a tedious shout-fest.

Kunihiko (Masaya Kato) is "Agitator's" rogue, running wild with his automatic and street gang of young thugs. The sole person he respects is his aniki, Higuchi (Naoto Takenaka), whom he has known since he was a young boy and always looked after him. But other than that, he has little respect for the rest of the Yokomizo family.

However, a rival faction led by Mizushima (Masato Ibu) and Muroi (Kenichi Endo) plot a move to unify the families, but to their benefit, resulting in assassinations and the start of a power struggle between anyone wanting to stake a claim. Kunihiko, while not necessarily out for power himself, wants to at least see justice served and so takes matters into his own, unconventional hands.

The plot reads like many a Seventies yakuza film and so is fairly conventional, at least by Miike's standards. And even though he adds his own flair, this is certainly among his more straight films from the turn of the millennium, when he was churning out outlandish gore for fun. With its large number of characters, all with a quest for power, this features many of the elements that can make yakuza films cliched and formulaic. The lower ranks live in relative squalor, while those at the top sit in offices on lavish furniture far away from the wild action they orchestrate.

Here Miike balances the violent with the more sedate well, as running round with weapons in drive-by shootings is contrasted by slow home life and dialogue scenes making this a more well-rounded effort from the director, not going for shocks of the extreme. In a film with an extended runtime - broken down into two parts on video release - Miike allows the slower scenes to have an extended run, but manages to use the large number of characters to his advantage, with lots of side stories and subplots to keep the audience engaged.

As with "Ichi the Killer" released the same year, despite the power struggle scenario, the main focus of the film is the nature of relationships between the older 'brother' and younger 'brother.' The duality of the love-and-hate nature of the relationships is explored, with the younger brother starting off an innocent brought into the world of crime by their elder, exemplified by Hitoshi (Norihisa Kobayashi), a delivery boy literally dragged kicking and screaming into the yakuza, who ends as Kunihiko's sole-surviving ally. Despite their loyalty to the elder, the younger brother's life could have been so different if it wasn't for their aniki. In "Ichi" this was explored from an S&M perspective, but the duality here is felt in Sakuraba (Yoshiyuki Daichi) delivering the film's tagline to his aniki, Kumihiko: Thank you.

Another way in which Miike uses the long list of characters to his advantage is through a cast of well-known faces, namely Naoto Takenaka alongside Miike and notable crime director regulars, including Miike himself in a rare acting role.

Experimentation is never far away for Miike, however, and the scenes of Kumihiko and his girlfriend are featured throughout, but completely detached from the main story arch. His nameless love (Aya Kawamura) narrates scenes of the pair sharing lovers' bliss, showing a different side to the wild man. Far away from the yakuza, she is his escape from the violence and machismo of his day-to-day world. Shot in a film noir style, these scenes could be removed without notice, but add variation to the lengthy runtime and a further break from the formulaic.

There are shades of early Nineties Kitano with yakuza lying in wait ("Sonatine") and driving a lorry into oblivion ("Boiling Point"), but the latter does show how "Agitator" does still slip into cliches. Typical of the Seventies staple, the rogue sees his life go into an inevitable demise which we see coming a mile off.

Continuing the theme of duality, this is a violent yakuza film you would associate with Miike, but conducted in a more measured way that you would not expect of his. With both the expected and the unexpected on offer, Miike shows he can rein it in, to some extent at least, taking on the role of a more matured big brother.