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Pistol Opera (2001)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted: 19
Fresh: 15
Rotten:4
Average Rating: 6.7/10
Theatrical Release:Jun 13, 2003 Limited
Synopsis: Seijun Suzuki, the legendary Japanese director probably best known for the cult hit BRANDED TO KILL, returns with this movie about a league of killers of hire. Something of a sequel to BRANDED TO... Seijun Suzuki, the legendary Japanese director probably best known for the cult hit BRANDED TO KILL, returns with this movie about a league of killers of hire. Something of a sequel to BRANDED TO KILL, the film stars Makiko Esumi as a killer named Miyuki Minazuki but known as "Stray Cat" the number three assassin in Japan's professional killer guild. As in its predecessor, number three is contacted by the guild and ordered to kill number one. Knowing that if she succeeds she will become number one, Miyuki embarks on a difficult and dangerous mission to kill the elusive number one. Told in Suzuki's trademark style that blends a fractured narrative with lurid and heavily stylized action sequences, PISTOL OPERA is another brilliant work from a great director. [More]
Starring: Makiko Esumi, Masatoshi Nagase, Mikijiro Hira
Starring: Makiko Esumi, Masatoshi Nagase, Mikijiro Hira
Director: Seijun Suzuki
Director: Seijun Suzuki
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Reviews for Pistol Opera
The screen is artfully covered like the abstract paintings by Jackson Pollock and Man Ray.
I couldn't give a fully coherent synopsis of Pistol Opera if my life depended on it, but it's still the most fun new movie I've seen since Mulholland Drive and Waking Life (both also 2001).
While it's certainly enjoyable to see this old master up to his tricks again, and the film stands perfectly well on its own, the cinematic high jinks of the 80-year-old director don't quite live up to the reputation he created for himself 36 years ago.
Though extraordinarily simplistic at its core, Suzuki's directorial style is so chock-full of vigor and passion for his craft that it spills into Pistol Opera, allowing the flick to carve out its own niche
Eighty-year-old Japanese director Suzuki Seijun has always been a gifted master stylist, and Pistol Opera shows that his unique vision has not dulled with age.
Nothing in Pistol Opera ever seems remotely possible, but it's still gorgeous art -- like a dream David Lynch had after watching too many John Woo movies.
The director's gaudy approach to his individual frames begs for a deeper meaning that you’re going to have to bring to the table yourself.
Stylish but obtuse. Charitably, we might try to think of 'Pistol Opera' as the 'Tampopo' of killing people.
Seijun is helped enormously by Makiko Esumi, a dazzling beauty who delivers a flinty, self-assured performance as Stray Cat.
A strange tale that ultimately achieves a level of abstraction entirely divorced from any conventional mode of storytelling.
What counts isn't the convoluted plot or exotic characters -- it's the brilliance of Suzuki's cinematic style, articulating the action with eye-boggling color and split-second editing effects.
Pistol Opera is unique for sure, it just never made me want to follow it down its strange path.
Suzuki has made the ultimate meta-movie, a self-parodying, surrealist gangster daydream as intoxicating and insubstantial as an absinthe swoon.
Whether more is pompously suggested than actually here and merely meets the eye, Pistol Opera is fun in the grand style.
Whereas Kill was uproariously stylish via pop-noir, Opera goes in the opposite direction by concentrating much more on color, choreography, and composition than any kind of conventional narrative.
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