I understand why Tarantino and other people might like Tokyo Drifter (東京流れ者). It's a movie filled with style. Much of it takes place on what looks like a Vincente Minelli Hollywood movie set from the 1950s, and yet the genre is a kind of yakuza western.
But this movie is style over substance. I honestly didn't know who was who half the time or what was going on. I liked the main character a lot. He's very cool. But this thing wore out my patience.
Tokyo Drifter did, however, help me see how Suzuki got from the tight films noirs he was making in the 1950s to the surreal nationalist stuff he was making in the 1980s. Tokyo Drifter totally makes sense as something midway between the two.
This is another Nikkatsu crime caper, and it's in the Criterion Channel series Japanese Noir, though it is definitely not a noir.
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