Masato Harada and Totsunyu!

[John Dougill]

Many thanks for the feedback about this.  I see now that Harada wants to do
a Ken Loach or Charlie Chaplin by supporting the little man against the
system.  But I wonder in what sense Yakusho Koji's top police officer can be
called a little man...  I could imagine a good left-wing perspective of the
siege being made from the viewpoint of one of the real little men who got
injured or killed in the service of a bureaucratic state, while providing
the audience with something of the motivation of the Red Army terrorists.  I
still feel Harada missed out on saying anything meaningful here - rather it
looks more like he was pandering to the American market through exploitation
of a police siege with typical American themes - police infighting, lone
individual ranged against the powers that be, clash between local and
national police forces, guns and shootings...  even the the opening style
with its time and place names punched out in romaji conveyed that
impression, as did the final shoot-out.  Whereas Bounce Kogals was a fresh
and vital critique of contemporary Japan, this film seemed to have the
box-office uppermost in mind...