Branded to Kill, to Die, and Start All Over: from Seijun Suzuki to John Wick

I have a limited bandwidth for the inanities of most action series. Most of them tend to devolve and if we're honest, weren't really that interesting to begin with. Even the MCU entries - many of which I still enjoy - haven't sustained their initial quality or maintained a consistent level of commitment from moviegoers, it seems. The Mission Impossible series seems to have gotten more adept or accomplished at executing the formula; but can the same be said of the Fast and Furious franchise? Or what do we say about the James Bond films?

In the latter case, we have a character rebooted and reinvented that has established a kind of cultural cachet over the course of sixty plus years. The MacQuarrie/Tom Cruise films rather prove my point: these aren't compelling dramas, but they do what they're supposed to: present a regular cast of characters that people find charming or can root for, introduce a McGuffin or two, provide a villain or villain substantially interesting/dastardly enough to boo and hiss at, and keep it all afloat with lots of increasingly intricate/hazardous set-pieces. I'll be the first to admit that I don't find them boring, but I'm not out of my mind with anticipation when a new one comes out. As for the Fast and Furious flicks, I'm just not engaged. They have their followers and predictability and a cast of characters that people like and respond to.

Recently, I gave in and caught up with John Wick: Chapter 4 and can support the reviews that tout it as a solid actioner. However, I found something about it that while pretty familiar, brought to mind something I'd not thought too much about.

For full disclosure, I hadn't seen the first or third entries in the series, but I liked the second well enough and the current "chapter" is an efficient outing, even at over two hours. What resonated with me more this time around was the similarity to other films about assassins (or gangsters, or spies, or thieves, etc., etc.) who are trying to get out and go straight or just who want their freedom from an oppressive organizational structure.

However, the reason this clicked with me more this time was the sheer visual element. John Wick Chapter 4 is a visual feast and the first film it called back to my mind wasn't Seijun Suzuki's Branded to Kill, a likely template for this and others of the genre. No, the first that came to mind was Suzuki's late masterpiece Pistol Opera, which takes the same basic plot from Branded, but sets it in an eye-popping pop art cinematic canvas of non-stop rumination on destiny and survival. These are, of course, shared themes with Wick, but the execution is similar. 

I could also point to Jodorowsky's El Topo in terms of similarly arresting visuals and another instance of a murderer on the road to some kind of redemption or freedom. To be sure, Wick (any of them, unless the first and third are) is not as surreal as El Topo (or for that matter, Pistol Opera), but each of these are anchored in a central character whose struggle to regain their autonomy is supremely accomplished at what they do, only challenged by some shadowy figure we hear about but don't see until well into the story. 

Of course, Suzuki's hero and heroine (the gender is flipped in Pistol Opera) do die; Wick does, too, in this fourth entry. Supposedly. I've heard rumors that the fifth episode is or was in pre-production, but it seems idiotic to repeat that as - spoilers - Wick dies at the end. 

On reflection, there is another Suzuki opus that also fits into this world. His 1966 film Tokyo Drifter deals more even more with someone trying to get out but where the ruling organization and institutional structures don't allow for that. The set-ups and shoot-outs are equally visceral and we get our first taste of those saturated colors that would prevail in Suszuki's later work, as well as the Wick films.

This doesn't fully prepare the uninitiated for the amplified degrees of action and violence employed in Wick 4. It's debatable if the film at hand is a "better" film than Suzuki's works, but it is certainly more.

To be sure, too, the cast goes a long way to making the film immanently watchable. From Ian McShane to the late Lance Reddick to Donnie Yen to Bill Skarsgård, the supporting performances are pulled off expertly, but it is Keanu Reeves in the titular role who renders the proceedings compelling and lend the film some kind of central gravitas. Reeves has a basic humanity about him even when he's killing people at a clip in remarkably choreographed fashion.

There's a lot to like about piffle like this. It's Big Popcorn, to be sure, but just don't think about it too much and appreciate the cleverness that is there (it really is). Director Chad Stahelski and scriptwriters Shay Hatten and Michael Finch have set up a world in which hitmen are only allowed to off their targets and apparently, each other. Thus, when mind-boggling violence opens up on the dance floor, no one makes an effort to stop it or flee. Although this may not have been intended, it reads as satire of how= inured we are becoming to gun violence and crime in public spaces. 

There are plenty of other interesting touches along the way and if Stahleski and his team aren't interrogating the idea of fate, loyalty, and freedom as deeply or incorporating these concerns into the text of the film as Suzuki and some others in similar works, the filmmakers still get points for presenting a - believe it or not - relatable figure in Wick himself. After all, how many of us have wanted to switch careers or get out of a job because we're only there owing to economic or perhaps other obligations?

Still, I'd make it a point to not start a job I'd have to shoot my way out of...