Depending on where you land, Takeshi Kitano‘s brand of bleak, black humor laced gangster nihilism is either right up your alley or not. This writer didn’t particularly care for the beautifully shot but empty “Outrage,” though Playlist colleague Gabe Toro really liked the sequel when it played at the New York Film Festival last year. And now, it’s finally headed to theaters, so you can get a taste yourself of what Kitano has cooked up with the sequel “Beyond Outrage.”
The very notion of a follow-up is a bit surprising given that in the first film, very few were left standing. But this time around, the Sanno and Hanabishi crime families are manipulated into a gang war by gung-ho detective Kataoka, and right in the middle is Otomo (Kitano) who has survived from the previous movie and wants to get out but they keep pulling him back in. The result is saving beatings, dudes getting shot up, and the use (again) of a power drill. But, as our review states, “nothing can dilute the sheer force of a passionless bullet from the gun of an expert.”
“Beyond Outrage”is on VOD on November 28th and opens in limited release on January 4, 2014. Watch below.
