Tatsumi: Dirty Gangster Jobs

Nobody would confuse Tatsumi for Leon the Professional. Despite his underworld ties, he usually only handles bodies after they have been murdered. As a corpse cleaner, it is his dirty job to render the whacked unidentifiable. Yet, for reasons even he cannot explain, he tries to prevent a difficult young woman from becoming his next gig in director-screenwriter Hiroshi Shoji’s Tatsumi, which just released on VOD.

Ostensibly a fisherman, Tatsumi works for two local Yakuza factions, covering up their lethal dirty work. They constantly pressure him fully commit to the “family,” but that probably isn’t the best rhetoric to convince him, since we see in flashbacks how he kicked his self-destructive hoodlum brother to the curb, for the sake of his own self-preservation. Considering Tatsumi’s cynicism and world-wariness, no one would expect him to stick his neck out for an obnoxious troublemaking Gen-Z’er like Aoi, but he will anyway.

Apparently, a shipment of drugs was misappropriated and the trail runs through the garage run by mobbed-up Yamaoka and his wife, Kyoko, who happens to be Tatsumi’s ex. However, it soon becomes clear Kyoko’s little sister Aoi is also highly compromised. Nevertheless, Tatsumi reluctantly takes steps to protect her from the deranged Ryuji Sawamura and his scumbag brother Takeshi, who have unleashed a scorched earth campaign against anyone and everyone they might suspect.

This film is so gritty, you should brush your teeth after watching it. Tatsumi definitely puts the “anti” in antihero. His job is literally to mutilate corpses. Yet, there is a profoundly moral aspect to Shoji’s screenplay. Apparently, there are some lines the title character just won’t cross.

Regardless, Tatsumi still functions as a brutally potent gangster thriller. It is the kind of film wherein things constantly go from bad to worse. Yet, there is also something almost poetic in its extreme grunginess. Seriously, why would you want to be a gangster if it meant living in this environment?

Yuya Endo is quiet, but violently powerful as the title character. If you want brooding, he has you covered. Conversely, Tomoyuki Kuramoto is a spectacular scat-show as the unhinged Ryuji Sawamura. He is cut from the same cloth as Tony Montana, but exercises less restraint.

Tatsumi is an uncompromising film in nearly every respect. Even though it will be overshadowed by awards bait, it will hold up far better than three-fourths of the films scheduled to be released in the next two months. It is the kind of film you will look back on in six months’ time and think “that was a really good movie.” Very highly recommended, Tatsumi is now available on VOD.