Outrage

Rating: 7.2/10

Film Class: C

Genre: Mafia, Drama

A film about the bloodbath among the Yakuza gangster groups in Japan. I got to learn more about them, about their "culture" and about how influential they are in Japan. The take-home message from this movie is that the Yakuza gangs are ruthless, unreasonable, and have a s***load of time on their hands.

Treat this movie like a documovie (hybrid of movies and documentaries) and you'll be in for a good time. But if you expect something like Eastern Promies, you'll be gravely disappointing. Senseless violence, irrational consequences and an utter lack of "story". But it's quite an oxymoron, because it's what makes this film unique in its own sense. I believe it was the intentional message of the director, as what he was trying to bring across to the audience was to understand the way the Yakuzas work.

*major spoilers ahead* At the end of it, it felt like the entire movie was going around in circles, with no purpose... almost as if one would have wasted 109 mins of their time. But on closer scrutiny, it was more educational than squirmish or senseless. The Yakuza's main boss is in charge of looking over the different yakuza groups. All of the groups run independently, but are governored by the main boss (kinda like a royal family). The different groups have to answer to the main boss, and yet he plotted a blood feud between the clans. As to his exact purpose of doing so, I can only assume he's just so high up on the hierarchy that he just wants to see what would come out of the little dispute, at the same time to prove that his foresight was right.

What started from a molehill blasted into a mountain, before you knew it, everyone was killing off each other's clan members despite the clans being "sworn brothers". It just really showed me how there's no such thing as "blood/sworn" brothers in the gangster business... There's backstabbing everywhere and everyone else is plotting ways to move up in the hierarchy. I was lost during the first 30 mins of the movie, with all the different clan names and character names... but was gradually able to piece together the "big picture".

The Yakuzas are so influential even the police are working for them. They have so many connections there's just no way you can run, or hide from them. The seemingly most useless character in the movie reigned supreme at the end. So bottomline is, always understand the system, cos' by doing so, even if you're a seemingly worthless dog, there's always a door of opportunity for you to seize complete control. And if you wanna survive in Japan, don't be a Yakuza, be a corrupted policeman instead.... Warped take-home messages but the main idea of this movie I hope, is simply for squirmish education.

You don't have to be too affected with the gore because most of the time, they are cut away scenes, without visual but with sound. And yes, it's definitely more of a guy movie becaue I doubt any females will speak fondly of it.