Akira
Sato was supposed to just mark time in what could be considered the Yakuza equivalent
of Witness Protection. An Osaka clan allied with his boss will put him up in an
unassuming suburban home. All he has to do is act normal. However, that will be
the only part of being a Yakuza hitman that has ever been a struggle for him—especially
the inconvenient moratorium on killing people. Trouble will inevitably find its
way to his incognito doorstep in Kan Eguchi’s The Fable, which screens
as the centerpiece selection of the 2019 New York Asian Film Festival.
The
hitman known to many simply as “The Fable” is the best in the business, because
he was trained by the best—his father—as we will see in flashbacks. He will take
out a room full of rival Yakuza in the opening action scene like it was
nothing, but his boss deems it time for him to lay low for a while afterward.
Unfortunately, a couple of young, nihilistic rivals want to make their name by
killing The Fable, so they will follow his trail to Osaka.
Frankly,
Yoko, Sato’s femme fatale assistant might have a harder time enduring Osaka’s quiet
respectability. As a natural stoic, Sato can work menial delivery job without
complaints. He just might even develop a human relationship with his Misaki, a cute
and naïve co-worker. However, he just can’t help acting weird, due to his lack
of socialization. Regardless, his foray into normalcy will be short-lived when
his host requests his help to quell a territorial power struggle.
Based
on Katsuhisa Minami’s manga, The Fable combines goofball humor with wild
over-the-top action set pieces (performed by the Jackie Chan Stunt Team). In terms
of tone, it hits roughly the same notes as Takashi Miike’s Mole Song
movies, but Eguchi and screenwriter Yusuke Watanabe often use crass cheeseball
humor to satirize the crassness and cheesiness of Japanese mass media.
Jun’ichi
Okada is quite the game stone-faced straight man as The Fable. Yuya
Yagira is flamboyantly villainous as Kojima, a recent parolee making all kinds
of trouble as the wild card in the brewing Yakuza civil war. Mizuki Yamamoto is
certainly endearing as the innocent Misaki, but Fumino Kimura steals scene
after scene as the elegant but dangerous Yoko (remember Marian Crane’s drinking
contest at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark? That’s her idea of
a good way to kill time).
The
Fable is
not exactly high art, even among big screen manga adaptations, but it certainly
zips along. It is sort of like My Blue Heaven with a higher body count
and arguably a bigger heart. Despite his social awkwardness, Sato is one of the
more appealing movie assassins of recent vintage. Recommended for fans of wild
Yakuza films, The Fable screens tomorrow (7/2), as part of NYAFF ’19.
