WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Aspen Orson There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

grantss A hit-man, known simply as "Number 3" (after his ranking in the hit- man community) is hired to protect a key crime figure. Things don't go according to plan and he finds himself on the outer with his organisation. Furthermore, this brings him into conflict with the mysterious and dangerous Number 1.Stylish but random. There was heaps of potential - from the outset the movie looked like a Japanese film-noir. The plot was quite gritty and interesting and seemed set up for a classic story.Unfortunately, it wasn't to be. The plot develops in rather random fashion. Things just happen out of blue, often with no continuity from or reference to previous scenes. It's as if director Seijun Suzuki was trying too hard to be arty and ended up just being unfocused. Throw in some hit-and-miss performances and the overall result is disappointing.

jadavix "Branded to Kill" is an ode to the concept of style over substance.This would be all well and good, if not for the fact that the treatment of the plot is so confusing that it detracts from your enjoyment of the pleasures the movie offers.I was reminded of "The Maltese Falcon", an acknowledged classic with a plot few would suggest you really try to follow. The difference is, the set up for that movie is simple: a bunch of bad guys and the hero are after a priceless statuette."Branded to Kill" is too complicated to sum up in one sentence. While you should be dazzled by its imagery and laughing at some of the crazier moments - in one scene, the hit-man protagonist has a truce with another hit-man that involves going everywhere together, arms linked - you are too busy trying to piece together what you are seeing and why you are seeing it.The protagonist is twice saved from death by a fashion accessory. A belt buckle and then a headband come to his aid. Unlikely in the first instance, ridiculous in the second. So why isn't it funnier? The movie's palette is far too bold and striking for a detail like a headband shielding a bullet to really register.The bottom line is that style over substance is fine, but not when the plot distracts from it.

Joseph Sylvers "Un Chien Adalou" inspired Yakuza film, with some of the finest editing I've ever seen (that goes for the black and white cinematography too).Butterflies, bullets, mirrors, again and again as death, action, and cinema, refracted around themselves and each other, in a whirl wind of jump cuts and shadows.Fans of Lynch, Buneul, or Takashi Miike will enjoy. I can see how this inspired, a lot of film makers, but it still doesn't look like anything else I've ever seen. Much better than "Gate Of Flesh", my only previous Siejen Suzuki experience, though the plot is more intentionally confusing, the images and the experience on a whole, is inspired...and a very good, very strange time.Like an miniature epic Spy Vs. Spy in Japan, in a dream you forget when you wake up in the mourning, but can't stop thinking about for the rest of the day. Funny too.

chaos-rampant Much has been made of how weird and off-beat Branded to Kill is. However it is important to consider it as part of Suzuki's progression through film-making. Before you can break the rules, you have to master them. Suzuki did so in several of his earlier pictures, from Underworld Beauty to Tattooed Life. And every time he was called to deliver a run of the mill yakuza flick, he infused it with his personal style. More and more he fractured the visual language of cinema every time, until he got rid of it or transformed it into a psychotic beast for Branded to Kill, revealing what lies beneath.A plot synopsis would read something like this: Jo Shishido is killer Number #3 with ambitions of becoming Number #1. Who is Number #1? Does he even exist? That is until he's called to transport a client safely. The borders between realism and surrealism blur hopelessly at that point and what follows is a nightmarish concoction of beautiful set-pieces that lead up to his final confrontation with Number #1.Saying that Branded to Kill is weird is an understatement. In turns fascinating, confusing, nonsensical, surrealist, psychotic, thrilling, poetic, nightmarish, confusing, tiring, mind-numbing and exhilarating, it defies description as much as it defies sense. The boundaries of time, space and logic are blurred and all you can do is experience the ride. It doesn't try to make much sense and apparently Suzuki made it up as he went along. The result was to be fired by Nikkatsu Studios for delivering a picture that "made no sense". I don't blame them really. Studios are businesses and Branded to Kill is not a movie with massive appeal. Ahead of its time in that aspect.Filmed in beautiful black and white, with a languid jazzy score and a film-noir ambiance, Branded to Kill will certainly appeal to people with strange tastes. Don't go in expecting a yakuza action flick (although there are several gunfights and enough action to go along) or you'll be sorely disappointed. As an indication of the uncharted territories Branded to Kill's treads, I'll guesstimate that fans of Eraserhead-era Lynch, Koji Wakamatsu and Singapore Sling's style will appreciate it. I can't say "like it", because ultimately that's between the viewer and Branded to Kill to sort. Either way, it has to be experienced at least once. Just sit back and let the surreal absurdity of it all wash over you...