Smuggler (2011)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Truly Dreadful Film

A Major Disappointment

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

OK I know this is based on the manga but I won't blame the manga. Because this movie, while it should faithfully and integrally match and live up to the literature it's based on, is a stand alone project. And it fell. First off...this is not Ichi the Killer. People don't need to stop trying to be Ichi the Killer because after all you emulate classics. But they need to stop trying to be Ichi the Killer whilst also trying to outdo it. It won't work. It simply won't work. I have no idea what Ando Masanobu was doing in this film after his amazing opening scene as Vertebrae. I have no idea what the film in general was doing after the amazing opening scene. I was locked in, mesmerized, laughing, entertained, but in hindsight it was overdone while underdone. Like a frozen burger cooked on high heat: it looks good and ready to serve but then you realize everything on the inside is a mess. Maybe they should have had a different director. The film was all over the place. And the "mystery" about who killed the yakuza boss in the beginning? I didn't even realize this was a mystery. ****SPOILER ALERT**** First of all the opening scene shows who killed the mobster, so why make it a mystery who set him up? It's hard to realize it was a setup in the first place. I mean, he's a yakuza boss. People will show up to kill you. So I guess this film was intentionally not a legit whodunnit murder mystery, but more so showing us who killed him already so the viewers laugh at the yakuza hypothesizing how he died. OK. But it leads to a slue of senseless violence so I didn't laugh. So the film fails either way. It wasn't funny. I realize Japanese films either give a deep, serious gaze into the yakuza underworld, or do a parody of it. And so far only Takashi Miike can successfully do both. Not even Sion Sono can do yakuza like Miike! But OK, not everyone can be number 1 but they still must try, I get it. Ichi the Killer (also credit to its manga author/illustrator, and I have peeked through the manga and it looks damn good and I don't even read manga), successfully blends and juxtaposes (did I use that word right? Whatever) humor and gore; bleach blond Kakihara (not Ichi but Ichi's rival) was funny, cool, sexy, creepy, insane, adorable. Partly because it was played by Asano Tadanobu, and mostly because it was filmed by someone who knows what the hell they're doing. The director here didn't know how to put 1 and 1 together. It was filmed retrospectively for no reason. Just to be filmed retrospectively? Because it didn't add to the mystery. Retrospect is supposed to show a blur in the memory and then clear things up with flashbacks. That didn't happen here! The girl they chose to play the yakuza's wife was no good and with her wig it took me a while to realize she's from Sono's Love Exposure 2008. Yea she wasn't good in that either.Firstly the movie is about...lots of things. A NEET who wants to be an actor and addicted to pachinko gambling gets caught up in the underworld and has to work as a corpse mover (cool concept to be honest). And Vertebrae is on the run after massacring the Japanese yakuza. He is part of the Triad. Meanwhile the Japanese hunt for the killer. This somehow entangles the NEET, the corpse delivery driver and his righthand man, who for 2 minutes was f***ing hilarious: an old man who talks like a little kid and skips and sings when he gets food. However while it adds to the silliness it doesn't work as a parody since nothing connects. Whereas in Sono's movie "Play in Hell" they made the yakuza clumsy and silly, as well as absurdly violent. Thus it worked as a yakuza parody. This, did not.Like there's a scene where the NEET is kidnapped by the yakuza rival of Vertebrae. He gets tortured by a yakuza in a diaper... None of it is done cool nor funny. While Ichi the Killer, somehow...it all was. And the revenge the NEET gets was anti-climactic. I imagine it was supposed to be a showdown where the crowd cheers for him. But it fell flat because the director took up SO much time with all the useless nonsense and could've saved screen time to add to the climax of this scene. He was the good guy suffering for no reason and his revenge wasn't played out well. He was sent there as a lamb, yet this is meant to be some life lesson for him. It might have worked but it was badly done.And the action. It was garbage. CGI, slow-mo, sped up garbage. Sure Ando Masanobu can swing those iron nunchucks pretty well but they should've stuck to that. His moves become silly nonhuman stuff and it takes away from the badass he's meant to be. If this was a fantasy film someone should've told me. Or, if that was supposed to be funny someone should've told me. The gore also was ridiculous because psychologically those who like good gory films wanna see the victim either get revenge or have the bad guy be the victim. This film had neither.OK so it wasn't funny. It wasn't cool. The torture was CGI or wasn't even shown, and wasn't justified nor avenged. The plot was all over the place. The actors sucked ass so bad. The costume design made the film look tacky and stupid. Much unlike Miike's "Like a Dragon." Which I'm gonna go watch again to wash this stupidness from my brain.

Although offering one of the best action sequences I ever saw ,,Smuggler''quickly looses its fascination at the other half of the film ,crossing the viewer's line of pain tolerance thanks to the unnecessary torture scenes. Having watched ,, Ichi the Killer '' that would not be of a problem if there only wasn't the unsatisfying other half of the plot, ending abruptly and disappointedly mundane. Added the too superficial ,,new'' characters , especially the one played by Hikari the film looses its initial potential. Long story short: Smuggler is a entertaining film ,but you can miss it . The strong first half promises something outstanding , enhancing the viewer's disappointment of the other half. 2 hours lenght , some more character depth ,less torture and this would surely be a ,,9''. Overall I can advice you ; better watch Ishii's Shark Skin Man if you want to see something really outstanding or if you can tolerate extreme violence and disturbance ,,Ichi the Killer '', which has partially the same plot and similar characters.

Kinuta (Satoshi Tsumabuki) is a down on his luck loser. An out of work actor, he sits at a slot machine wasting away his final change in hopes of hitting a jackpot. When Kinuta is offered a chance to win at a 'fixed machine', he jumps at the opportunity, only to have events unfold that lave him with a large yakuza debt. Kinuta then seeks help by a banker who offers him cash in turn for working with a tough guy, Joe (Masatoshi Nagase) in transporting human cargo for good paying clients.In a story that will intersect with Joe and Kinuta, an assassin by the name of Vertebrae (think Ichi the Killer) has just killed a crime boss and is being hunted by a crime family determined to seek revenge. Vertebrae is a master at both kung-fu and in using his trademark numb chucks to pulverize his victims. But his killing of the crime boss might be his undoing and soon him and his partner are cornered by Joe who has been hired to transport Vertebrae to the yakuza bosses alive. Directed by Katsuhito Ishii, Smuggler is an uneven mix of comedy, drama and scenes of intense torture. Based on the comic book Sumagurâ by Shôhei Manabe and unfortunately the animated pages don't translate as well onto the big screen. The acting and humour are present, but more in a dumb Three Stooges kind of pattern. Watching Joe and Kinuta's small dim-witted cohort might have read well in the book, but it is buffoonish on the screen and took us out of the film.Smuggler then goes into full comic mode with the capture of Vertebrae. He jumps and runs like road runner and his scenes of capture and escape were something that belonged more in Kung Fu Hustle than they did in Smuggler. So before you jump on us for 'not getting it', let me inject that we appreciated the comedic elements and the action sequences (which were really good). But when the film became a torture movie after Kinuta is asked to impersonate the escaped Vertebrae, it went to a place that didn't feel right with the rest of the film. Kinuta is subjected to intense torture involving a table of pain inflicting devices and these scenes didn't seem to fit into a film that had a character running faster than the wind just one chapter prior. That leaves Smuggler as an uneven, but interesting experiment. We cannot discount the coolness of the Vertebrae character (spinoff please!) and the action sequences make us thankful the film was not in 4D. However, the sum of the films overall parts just didn't gel enough to make a coherent and enjoyable movie and for that reason, we cannot recommend it. www.killerreviews.com

"Please laugh if you're not sure whether it's disturbing or funny," says director Ishii Kazuhiro at TIFF."Smuggler" is based on a single-volume manga about a failed actor who becomes an underground mover to pay back $30,000 (non-inflated exchange rate) in fraudulent debt to a Chinese gang. This is the type of movies where the plot is driven by quirky dark humor rather than logic, as the protagonist Kinuta gets deeper and deeper into trouble in the most unlikely turn of events imaginable.It was the two "legendary assassins" Vertebrae (Andou Masanobu) and Viscera (Teiryuushin) who stole the spotlight though. There's quite a bit of action scenes throughout the film by those two in the most wacky form of violence. Vertebrae in particular was among the coolest, baddest villain ever. "Smuggler" is in no way for the faint of heart though. The lengthy torture scenes reminded me of Ichi the Killer (2001). In fact, it would've been an even more gory nerve wracking film if it wasn't for the camera angle censoring out the torture.Matsuyuki Yasuko (beautiful as ever) also delivers a strong performance, though Tsumabuki Satoshi as the protagonist was quite a miscast as he never seemed convincing in his role. Mitsushima Hikari who was decent in Shion Sono's "Love Exposure" (2008) was comically bad, almost reading the script the whole time.Despite the shortcomings by part of the cast, "Smuggler" is an entertaining dark comedy / action as long as you don't think too much and just enjoy the ride. And of course, don't forget to have the "teehee, his face got smacked by nunchucks" type of mindset when watching this film.