Otomo
is tan, rested, and ready. His recent time on Jeju Island has been restorative,
but he will swing back into action when an up-and-coming yakuza misbehaves in a
hotel controlled by his protector. The Yakuza factions will double-cross each
other every chance they get, but they cannot possibly contain the chaos let
loose by Otomo in Takeshi Kitano’s Outrage
Coda (trailer
here),
which screens during the 2018 Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film.
After
beating up two prostitutes who balked at his S&M games, the arrogant Hanada
demanded an apology from their organization. Instead, he gets a humiliating
dressing-down from Otomo. Hanada even agrees to pay restitution, but he kills Otomo’s
bag man on the way out of the country. This does not sit well with Otomo’s new
boss, Chang, the politically connected leader of a Korean syndicate that also
has operations in Japan. When Hanada’s belated attempt to apologize backfires,
Otomo is given the unspoken go-ahead to extract some old school payback.
Since
a crisis is also an opportunity, etc., etc., an old school gangster faction within
Hanada’s Hanabishi-kai schemes to exploit the brewing conflict with Chang to oust
their current president, Nomura, a former financier who did not come up through
the yakuza ranks. Of course, while he’s at it, Otomo would also like some payback
for his lieutenants who were killed in the previous film.
As
director, screenwriter, and lead actor, Takeshi Kitano/Beat Takeshi totally
delivers the gangster beatdown goods, once again. Coda is nearly as good as the original Outrage and considerably superior to the still-pretty-good Beyond. In some ways, Coda feels like Kitano’s summation film,
sort of like a yakuza Harry Brown or Gran Torino, but Kitano and Otomo
apologize for nothing. They might be grizzled and world-weary, but they still
have work to do—and if you’re part of it, then woe unto you.
As
Otomo, Takeshi the thesp always tacked an ultra-cool, understated approach, but
he pares his performance down even further this time around, like a minimalist yakuza
Mad Max. However, when he has something to say, it is usually very funny, in a
stone-cold kind of way. Kitano also has the support of a small army of colorful
supporting players, such as Toshiyuki Nishida as the opportunistic but high-strung
underboss Nishino and Pierre Taki as the thuggish Hanada.
