MOVIE REVIEW : ‘SURE DEATH’ MAKES NIFTY POP ART

Episodic and discursive, “Sure Death” (at the Kokusai today) immediately betrays its roots in a long-running Japanese TV series, but that’s all right because it’s so entertaining. It doesn’t advance the art of the Japanese cinema a smidgen, but it’s a nifty piece of pop art, a pleasure for the aficionado not likely to be flummoxed by escalating plot complications.

We’re back in the bad old Edo of the 1830s, a place so wicked that folks (who can afford it) hire professional assassins because they can’t depend on the law to see justice done.

The queen of these secret vigilantes is none other than the incomparable veteran star Isuzu Yamada, who is also a samisen maker (but watch out for her picks, purposely sharp enough to slit a man’s throat!). Alas, one of her proteges (Toshiro Ishido) is determined to run her out of business and has turned really bad, leaving a string of corpses with coins jammed in their mouths as his signature.

But she’s surrounded herself with a band of stalwarts headed by--wouldn’t you know?--a dedicated cop (Makoto Fujita). And, by golly, she makes her getaway in a quaint sub which, we are told, had been bought by the Shogunate from the Dutch.

Much of the film’s amusement derives from the sheer exoticism of the various methods employed by these seasoned killers. There’s the Bird Man, who applies poison to the beaks of his feathered friends whom he has trained to deliver lethal pecks, and the Ear Man, who loves to stick needles into the ears of his victims--all the way through their brains. Best of all is the handsome fellow, ostensibly a puppeteer, who unleashes swarms of white moths to blind his enemies in duels.

These swarms are quite beautiful; indeed, director Masahisa Sadanaga follows Japanese period-picture tradition in constantly attempting to discover beauty amid bloodshed--the latter so fast and fake that it isn’t all that wrenching. There’s a lovely moment, for example, when a little prostitute sends her beloved dead kitten out to sea on a tiny, candlelit raft.

Sadanaga, who loves water almost as much as Andrei Tarkovsky, even pauses to capture a raindrop on the point of a leaf. Such images punctuate the familiar headlong action and much broad joking (a lot of it generated by Fujita’s comical mother-in-law, played by rambunctious Kin Sugai). Gaudily gorgeous in its frank artificiality, “Sure Death” (Times-rated: mature) is sure-fire fun, but children, who might not see through the Grand Guignol, are best left at home.

‘SURE DEATH’ (Hissatsu)

A Shochiku presentation. Executive producers Hisashi Yamanouchi, Yozo Sakura, Yoshiki Nomura. Director Masahisa Sadanaga. Screenplay Tatsuo Nogami, Go Yoshida. Camera Ko Ishihara. Music Masaaki Hirao. Art director Nobutaka Yoshino. With Makoto Kujita, Isuzu Yamada, Toshiro Ishido, Gannosuke Ashiya, Naoko Ken, Yukiji Asaoka, Takao Kataoka, Kin Sugai, Mari Shiraki. In Japanese, with English subtitles.

Running time: 2 hours.

Times-rated: Mature.