Carlotta Films: New Restorations of Classic Seijun Suzuki Films Coming Soon

French label Carlota Films has provided a promotional video for an upcoming Seijun Suzuki retrospective, which will introduce multiple new and recent restorations of the following films: Tokyo Drifter (1966) Youth of the Beast (1963), Gate of Flesh (1964), Tattooed Life (1965), Branded to Kill (1967), The Flowers and the Angry Waves (1964), Story of a Prostitute (1965), Carmen From Kawachi (1966), and Fighting Elegy (1966).

In the United States, the recent 4K restoration of Branded to Kill is already out on 4K Blu-ray and Blu-ray, courtesy of the Criterion Collection.

YOUTH OF THE BEAST

When a mysterious stranger muscles into two rival yakuza gangs, Tokyo's underworld explodes with violence. Youth of the Beast (Yaju no Seishun) was a breakthrough for director Seijun Suzuki, introducing the flamboyant colors, hallucinatory images, and striking compositions that would become his trademark. The Criterion Collection proudly presents the film that revitalized the yakuza genre and helped define the inimitable style of a legendary cinematic renegade.

TOKYO DRIFTER

In this jazzy gangster film, reformed killer Tetsu's attempt to go straight is thwarted when his former cohorts call him back to Tokyo to help battle a rival gang. Director Seijun Suzuki's onslaught of stylized violence and trippy colors is equal parts Russ Meyer, Samuel Fuller, and Nagisa Oshima—an anything-goes, in-your-face rampage. Tokyo Drifter is a delirious highlight of the brilliantly excessive Japanese cinema of the sixties.

GATE OF FLESH

In the shady black markets and bombed-out hovels of post–World War II Tokyo, a tough band of prostitutes eke out a dog-eat-dog existence, maintaining tenuous friendships and a semblance of order in a world of chaos. But when a renegade ex-soldier stumbles into their midst, lusts and loyalties clash, with tragic results. With Gate of Flesh, visionary director Seijun Suzuki delivers a whirlwind of social critique and pulp drama, shot through with brilliant colors and raw emotions.

TATTOOED LIFE

Tetsuo (Hideki Takahashi, Fighting Elegy), a low-level yakuza is double-crossed by his boss and attacked. His younger brother Kenji (Kotobuki Hananomoto, This Transient Life), an aspiring artist with no connections to crime, comes to his aid and kills Tetsuo's assailant. Fearing repercussions from the yakuza they flee to Manchuria where they risk coming under suspicion of rival gangs. Seijun Suzuki (Branded to Kill) remains loyal to the conventions of the yakuza film, but Tattooed Life contains flashes of his later creative genius, including a final act of explosive visual excess that has become one of the director's all-time classic scenes.

BRANDED TO KILL

When Japanese New Wave bad boy Seijun Suzuki delivered this brutal, hilarious, and visually inspired masterpiece to the executives at his studio, he was promptly fired. Branded to Kill (Koroshi no rakuin) tells the ecstatically bent story of a yakuza assassin with a fetish for sniffing steamed rice (the chipmunk-cheeked superstar Joe Shishido) who botches a job and ends up a target himself. This is Suzuki at his most extreme—the flabbergasting pinnacle of his sixties pop-art aesthetic.

THE FLOWERS OF ANGRY WIVES

The Flowers and the Angry Waves is a stylish Japanese yakuza film set in the early 20th century. It follows a young gangster, Kikuji, who breaks the code by eloping with his boss's betrothed. The couple flees to Tokyo, attempting to start a new life, while hunted by a relentless assassin.

STORY OF A PROSTITUTE

Volunteering as a "comfort woman" on the Manchurian front, where she is expected to service hundreds of soldiers, Harumi is commandeered by the brutal Lieutenant Narita but falls for the sensitive Mikami, Narita's direct subordinate. Seijun Suzuki's Story of a Prostitute is a tragic love story as well as a rule-bending take on a popular Taijiro Tamura novel, challenging military and fraternal codes of honor, as seen through Harumi's eyes.

FIGHTING ELEGY

Kiroku boards with a Roman Catholic family and falls for the daughter Michiko. Soon after, he ignores his feelings, joins a gang, gets in fights and, eventually, becomes involved with the radical Kita Ikki group.

CARMEN FROM KAWACHI

Hoping to find success as a singer, Tsuyu runs away from Osaka to Tokyo, where she finds her spiritual force disturbed by an amoral city. Along the way she encounters millionaires, dominatrixes, artists, a corrupts monk, sexual hypocrisy, and male brutality. New 4K restoration.