Takeshi Kitano has had some of his biggest critical and commercial successes with gangster films, beginning with his 1993 international breakthrough "Sonatine" and continuing through to his 2012 hit "Outrage Beyond" ("Beyond Outrage"), which screened in competition at the 2012 Venice Film Festival.
But as chillingly violent as his yakuza characters can be, they often have a blackly humorous side as well. When the gangsters in "Beyond Outrage" operatically vent on an unfortunate underling, it sounds something like a manzai (comic duo) insult routine.
In his new film "Ryuzo to Shichinin no Kobuntachi" ("Ryuzo and the Seven Henchmen"), Kitano brings this comic undercurrent to the surface. Based on his own script about a gang of elderly retired yakuza, "Ryuzo" is intended as a laugh riot from beginning to end, with no glum reflections whatsoever on the plight of the aged. And it mostly is, though it helps to be a genre fan to get the inside jokes.