Dir. Takashi Miike, 2001, Japan, 150 mins, subtitles
Cast: Mickey Curtis, Yoshiyuki Daichi, Hakuryu, Masatô Ibu, Renji Ishibashi, Masaya Kato In one of Agitator's early scenes an innocent delivery boy is dragged into a house belonging to a yakuza gang where he is beaten, forced to swallow a whole bottle of whiskey and then held down while his back is tattooed with a yakuza design. This brutal initiation into the betrayal-and-bullets world of the Japanese gangster is similar to the way Miike Takashi drags his audience into the film. The opening half hour is a frantic machine-gun spray of jump cuts, voice-overs and split-second scenes typical of Miike's disorientating and confrontational approach to launching a narrative. Not content with merely stamping his mark on the film visually Miike also makes an appearance in this sequence as a yakuza destroying a rival gang's nightclub and lighting the fuse that ignites a vicious gang war. Agitator tells the rather complex story of two rival gangs, the Yokomizo and the Shirane, who are manipulated into destroying each other by the Tenseikai gang as part of a plan to outnumber and eventually take over their rivals. While much of this story takes place in the sombre, ritualistic meetings between the older gang leaders the real story of the film comes through the younger yakuza members, particularly ultra-cool henchman Kenzaki (Kato). As the violence escalates Kenzaki moves from acting on the decisions of his superiors to making his own, inheriting a wealth of responsibility in the process. It is this division between the young and old members of the gang, and the transition in between, that is central to the film. Agitator has two very clear strands to its narrative in the activities of the two generations, which gradually come together as the film progresses. In the first half the meetings of the older gang members take precedence with the younger generation waiting impatiently for their orders. This mirrored structure works as a way of drawing the audience into the film as we too are anxiously awaiting the orders from above, with brief explosions of violence coming as a welcome relief to the claustrophobic home life of Kenzaki's squad. We also feel the hopelessness of the leadership Kenzaki is forced into when his superior and mentor, Higuchi (Takenaka), is killed. Despite being the most mature member of his team Kenzaki applies ruthless aggression to the situation rather than the mediated scheming of his superiors and as a result remains an outsider, never fully integrated into the life he is devoted to. While the plot delivers a war between gangs and the themes expose a war between yakuza honour against love and friendship the visuals display the most essential and universal battle - that between the young and the old. Despite its frantic prologue Agitator is a definite departure from Miike's more violent and sensational work in films such as Ichi the Killer and Dead or Alive . With the exception of the various gunfights and assassinations the film is slow-paced and rather conventionally shot in an effort to reproduce the style of the classic 1970s yakuza movie. Miike says of this obvious influence, "I like traditional yakuza films. I generally prefer the orthodox to the innovative. I like to find interesting things that nobody cares about because they come in an orthodox format". While this is a valid approach it draws obvious comparisons with the films of Kinji Fukasaku (Graveyard of Honour - remade by Miike in 2002, and Battle Royale). Fukasaku's 1972 film Street Mobster has a very similar premise, pace and structure to that of Agitator which suggests that while Miike may have extended the appeal of the genre he has failed to move it forward (unlike the existential yakuza films of his contemporary Takeshi Kitano). It is also a reminder that in this country only a handful of Miike's films are available and that the image we have of his work has so far been restricted to the innovative, the controversial and the bizarre. While Agitator is none of these things it is still an enjoyable film with a strong performance from Kato and some memorable moments. However, perhaps we should be thankful that this release is not the Japanese video version with its additional fifty minutes of footage. Chris Regan |
