Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards

In some ways, I am an extraordinarily boring person. I am as predictable as the dawn. What I'm referring to is the fact that, if you entitle a movie GO TO HELL BASTARDS, I'm going to watch it, even if you stick DETECTIVE BUREAU 2-3 in front of the cool part.

I once rented a movie called DEATH MACHINE based purely on the title. Shit, you could call a cologne DEATH MACHINE, and I'd buy it. Luckily, it was a pretty good movie. The titular creature is a gorilla-shaped robot with a bear trap for a mouth. Fun times.

DETECTIVE BUREAU 2-3: GO TO HELL BASTARDS is a Japanese yakuza movie from 1963 directed by Seijun Suzuki. I love Japanese movies from the '60s, and I'm a big fan of Seijun Suzuki. I'm a flat-out geek for BRANDED TO KILL. A couple of years ago, I wrote a script called THE MISS MEN, and BRANDED TO KILL was a huge influence.

GO TO HELL BASTARDS isn't nearly as cool as the title, but it still has its charms. It stars Jo Shishido, who was Seijun Suzuki's go-to guy during their peak, his DeNiro to Suzuki's Scorsese.

Not long ago, I watched an interview with Suzuki in which he talked about how he'd gotten sick of cranking out programmers and, to break out of that rut, he decided to shoot something really off-the-wall and idiosyncratic. That movie was BRANDED TO KILL, and it got him fired from his studio contract.

Apparently, GO TO HELL BASTARDS was the kind of movie he was sick of doing. It's a by-the-numbers programmer, hitting every tired beat of the infiltration movie. Sometimes a film can rise above its programmer status by a high level of execution... for example, FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE fits the same paradigm, but it's still fucking great. This one is... okay.

It opens well. A bunch of yakuza buy a truckload of stolen weapons from a crooked soldier who's stationed at a U.S. Army base (which reminded me of BUFFALO SOLDIERS). Another gang shows up, a massive gunfight erupts, and gang#2 makes off with the guns. It looks like it's gonna turn into an all-out war.

Jo Shishida plays a private detective who hears about this on the radio, and sees an angle for making some money off the cops with this case. He shows up and volunteers to infiltrate the gang. The cops have this one guy locked up, who might be a key to solving the case, but there are a hundred armed yakuza outside the station, just waiting for this dude to get let out so they can gun him down. This is a cool scenario... it's a little PRECINCT 13, though the yakuza never attack the station itself.

Jo fakes them out, and helps the guy escape. In exchange, he says he wants to be a part of the gang. The dude's like, sure... but the rest the gang isn't so trusting. This was the best part of the movie for me. I like smart bad guys, and they give Jo a very thorough background check. In fact, they never quite let up, and eventually figure him out long after stupider people would have gotten lazy and given up. Jo keeps upping the ante, and they keep checking and double-checking, asking questions and following up on leads. In a way, they're almost like detectives themselves. It's cool.

Suzuki seems to like song and dance numbers. I've noticed a tendency in his films to just cut to some girls dancing in a disco or something, looking for any excuse to shove one in. I'm not sure if this was a studio mandate, or if he just likes 'em. In GO TO HELL BASTARDS, there are several. The coolest one has Jo meeting the gang at a night club. But... oh shit, the star of the floor show is Jo's ex-girlfriend! He knows she's gonna blow his cover as soon as the song ends. So to keep the song going, Jo jumps up and starts singing and dancing along with her. The yakuza aren't sure what to make of this. Even better: the girl changes the lyrics and starts singing about their relationship, how she loves him despite his flaws. Jo counter-sings, trying to explain what's going on to her without being so obvious about it that he tips his hat to the gangsters. It's a clever scene, and fun.

Speaking of De Niro/Scorsese, I just re-watched AFTER HOURS, which is about as brilliant as a black comedy can get. Watching that and GO TO HELL BASTARDS back-to-back, I noticed that both directors use dynamic camera movements through scenes in a very similar way. It's reminiscent of a more classic style of cinema, and made me think of Hitchcock. These days, it seems we more often see cuts instead of movement. I don't mind cuts, but I prefer the latter... it's a more dynamic way to construct a scene.

So there are things to enjoy in GO TO HELL BASTARDS, though the movie doesn't totally live up to the potential of that title. I liked this movie, but I love BRANDED TO KILL.