Gonin - LA Times Review

[Ted Mills]

I think this reviewer makes a *bit* too much of the gay subtext in the film
to the detriment of the other interesting facts (like how every single
person in the film is dead by the credits), but here it is for your
perusal.  If I have time this Wednesday when I go down to LA, I will try to
catch it.
*******

VIOLENT 'GONIN' EXPLORES MACHO FILMS' GAY SUBTEXT
by Kevin Thomas

Film-noir thrillers don't get much more subversive than Takeshi Ishii's
sleek, convoluted and drenchingly violent "Gonin."  Rich, shadowly images
combine with a dynamic, headlong pace as we're swept into the lethal,
brutal Tokyo underworld.  Plot developments come hurtling by like a spray
of bullets, so pay close attention.

For a  while we're under the impression that "Gonin" is a classic genre
film par excellence, but then a most provocative subtext emerges as a group
of five desperate men cross paths and decide to relieve the fearsome Ogoshi
gang of a great deal of money.

They are a handsome young disco owner, Bandai (Koichi sato) and a laid-off
corporate executive, Ogiwara (Naoto Takenaka) - both victims of recession;
a hotheaded, fearless male hustler-blackmailer, Mitsuya (Masahiro Motoki);
a peroxided pimp, Jimmy (Kippei Shiina), with a grudge against the Ogoshi,
of which he is a former member; and Hizu (Jinpachi Nezu), a rugged ex-cop
who lost his job when accused of taking bribes.

Ishii, who began as a manga artist, introduces these five with maximum wit
and impact.  Amid escalating mayhem, Ishii suggest that Mitsuya has
succeeded in seducing Bandai.  When the Ogoshi gang seeks revenge, it hires
a pair of the scariest him men in town, Kazuma (Kazuya Kimura) and Kyoya,
played with n eye patch by none other that that icon of Japanese cinema
machismo, Takeshi "Beat" Kitano.  You guessed it: Kazuma and Kyoya are
lovers.

At once Ishii manages to smash gay stereotypes and have fun with the
homoerotic, though generally unacknowledged, aspects of those ultra-savage,
ultra-masculine epics involving a lot of male bonding.  (No wonder "Gonin"
has been described by one critic as a gay "Reservoir Dogs.")

In any event, the film builds inexorably to a showdown right out of "The
Wild Bunch."  Violence, suggests Ishii, is ultimately as absurd as the
notion that gays are automatically effeminate types.  On the other hand,
nobody who wears lipstick could be tougher or more dangerous that Mitsuya.

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Ted Mills
Santa Barbara, CA                         "You're as strong as
Stoopid ol' USA                             your weakest link"
>>mills at rain.org<<                              - Mark E. Smith

http://www.rain.org/~mills  NOWHERELAND - the motion picture!!!!!
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