Female assassins have come a long way since Seijun Suzuki released “Pistol Opera,” a 2001 remake of his 1967 absurdist masterpiece, “Branded to Kill.” Starring Masako Esumi as "Number Three” in a hitman hierarchy, the film was long on Suzuki’s fabled style but short on anything resembling substance.
Isao Yukisada’s “Revolver Lily.,” a lavishly mounted action film based on Kyo Nagaura’s hard-boiled novel set in 1924 Tokyo, may nominally score higher in the substance department — it is fervently anti-war despite its sky-high body count — but the stylistics are once again front and center.
Not that Yukisada, a veteran director of contemporary dramas making a rare venture into period fare, is Suzuki-esque in his approach: He is a romanticist with a sentimental streak, not a surrealist with a dark sense of humor.