In
1980, it was not Japan’s veterans who were a menace to society. It was their
twisted war reporters. At least such was the case with Kunihiko Date. He
captured images that were too gruesome for the staid Japanese press. In
America, they could have made him a Pulitzer Prize-winner, but in Japan they
made him a Dostoevskian outcast and eventually a Travis Bickle-like psychopath.
One of several adaptations of Haruhiko Oyabu’s novel, Toru Murakawa’s The Beast to Die screens as part of the
Japan Society retrospective: Pop! Goes Cinema: Kadokawa Films and 1980s Japan.
In
the opening scene, Date ambushes a cop whom he seems to have some shared
history. They are pretty evenly matched, but Date eventually kills the
detective, taking his gun to rob a Yakuza casino. Again, the crime is not
pretty, but Date survives, several million yen richer. Of course, there is a
man hunt on, but they are looking for usual suspects. The quiet professional-looking
Date is largely free to move onto his next target.
That
would be a large commercial bank that takes the deposits of large several
downtown department stores. As a dry run, Date sets up an innocent banker to be
the fall guy. Based on the reaction times he observes, Date decides he needs a
partner. Sanada, an angry counter-culture drop-out waiter who makes a scene at
class reunion Date reluctantly attends looks perfect for the job. There are
only two complications. Reiko Hanada, an impossibly sweet classical music fan
Date meets at a concert might have a remote, outside chance of re-awakening his
conscience. As a more pressing concern, lone wolf Det. Hideyuki Kashiwagi keeps
sniffing around Date, based on a combination of intuition and eye-witness
reports from the casino murders.
Until
it runs off the rails in a spectacular third act derailment, Beast is a deliciously slick and groovy
thriller in the tradition of The Man Who Stole the Sun that also portrays the not so latent violence of the 1960s
and 1970s hippie movement. Frankly, during the second act, Date and Sanada are
a map-to-the-stars’-homes away from being Charles Manson and the rush of the
bank heist will send them hurtling over the edge.
Yusaku
Matsuda (who tragically died shortly after filming his international break-out
role in Ridley Scott’s Black Rain) is
absolutely chilling as the sociopathic Date. He is truly an electric yet clammy
and off-putting screen presence. On the other side of the spectrum, actress and
recording star Asami Kobayashi is utterly heart-breaking as Hanada. Takeshi
Kaga’s turn as Sanada basically illustrates Eric Hoffer’s True Believer, in the worst, most sullenly entitled way. Hideo
Murota adds a further note of unpredictability as the ethically ambiguous Det.
Kashiwagi.
