As playful with its narrative and characters as it is with its camera and editing, this is a colourful yakuza flick with style and energy to spare. Its story is complicated and confusing and nearly incoherent, but it makes no difference to the wonderfully stylized action sequences and bizarrely colourful visuals. From the get-go, it toys with things like contrast and lighting to set its mood, opening with a nearly black-and-white prologue and slowly infusing colour into its visuals. From there, there's a heavy emphasis on primary colours to simplify the complex shots and even more complex narrative, as Tetsu's trademark powder blue suit readily identifies him in any wild shootout or barroom brawl. The story, as mentioned, is full of backroom deals and double-crossing and secret alliances, and I'm sure I caught very little of it, but its only used as an excuse to move Tetsu around Tokyo and engage him in a series of perfectly choreographed, wildly inventive action scenes that only seem to grow in excitement and impressiveness. By the time the final standoff rolls around, you're not sure what else they can do to top the prior ones, but they somehow manage to. A definite recommend for any fan of Kill Bill, if only to see where QT got so much of his influence. Watch this film!

I hate to say it, but I did not enjoy this much. Yes, the art direction is colorful, the suits are crisp, etc., but I felt nothing throughout (not even excitement or tension) and often found it confusing and/or dull.

I know it has many fans. Just not to my taste.