Goyôkiba

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DIRECTED BY: Kenji Mishumi

FEATURING: Shintarō Katsu, Yukiji Asaoka, Mari Atsumi, Ko Nishimura

PLOT: In Tokugawa-era Japan, a cop is willing to step outside the law to take down some of the most nefarious criminals in the realm, using his unique brand of interrogation and enforcement to get at the truth.

COMMENTS: “Dirty Harry” Callahan. John Shaft. “Popeye” Doyle. They all hit screens within months of each other during the year of the loose-cannon cop, a new archetype in law enforcement that arose out of the ashes of both the peace-and-love 60s and the Hays Production Code. It would be entirely appropriate to welcome Hanzo “the Razor” into these ranks. He’s a lawman who doesn’t play by the rules. He’s the one honest man in a corrupt world, and he doesn’t care who he pisses off, even his own bosses. Women love him, men fear him. And most importantly, as he walks the streets of Edo, he’s accompanied by a kickin’ funk soundtrack. (Kunihiko Murai’s score would be perfectly at home on the streets of Harlem.) Sure, his adventures might be taking place 200-300 years in the past, but a lawman who doesn’t let the law get in his way is timeless.

It’s entertaining to watch how closely the film applies the conventions of the 70s rogue cop to this hard-bitten samurai. He talks back to his superiors, who repeatedly remind him how close he is to getting himself kicked off the force. He has a group of ex-cons he employs to help him gather information and plot against his opponents. He even has a solitary lifestyle, with a small home bereft of creature comforts, and a series of elaborate booby traps to foil would-be assassins. In a world of venal authorities who cling to their power and advantage, Hanzo seems like the faultless icon of righteousness we all need.

Of course, such a perfect hero does suck some of the suspense out of his adventures. Hanzo is presented as the epitome of manly rectitude. Is he strong? Of course, as evidenced by the trail of bodies he leaves behind after being confronted by small militias. Is he honest? As honest as they come, such as when he refuses to sign the basic oath of allegiance to the police force because he won’t engage in the hypocrisy of his peers. And most important of all: Does he have an enormous penis? I’m surprised you even feel the need to ask.

Not only is that last one not a joke, but it’s the ridiculous-yet-troubling foundation of his entire strategy of policing. Hanzo’s manhood is so sizeable, he has a specially carved platform to hold it, which he needs because he performs a daily regimen to toughen it up that includes beating it with a stick and plunging it into a bag of uncooked rice. He does this because it’s actually the most productive weapon in his arsenal, which he uses to persuade recalcitrant women to give up crucial information on the whereabouts and connections of lawbreaking men. And how does he accomplish this? He kidnaps them and rapes them, impaling them upon his great endowment until – without exception – they are so overcome with pleasure that they will gladly share anything he might care to know. He even has a tried-and-true method of stripping the women down, cinching them up in a fishing net, lowering them onto his linden Johnson, and setting them in motion like a spinning top to reach unthinkable levels of ecstasy while he looks on impassively. His mighty truncheon does the job every time, as big and reliable as Harry Callahan’s .44 Magnum. “Sword of Justice” turns out to be a pun.

Two elements define Hanzo the Razor. On the one hand, casting a historic Japanese warrior as a badass cop delivers a terrific charge. It’s gratifying to see smug, weaselly white-collar crooks get their comeuppance in any era, and Hanzo is a virile, if somewhat tubby, man of the people, like a Japanese Joe Don Baker. When he goes strutting down a dusty road accompanied by a blaring saxophone, tootling organ, and pulsing bassline, it’s genuinely thrilling. At the film’s end, when Hanzo looks out over a map of the entire country and surveys a land filled with crime and corruption that only he can tame, it’s visually spectacular.

But then there’s that other element, Hanzo’s key crime-fighting tool. If any film can be said to be a product of its time, it’s this one; its prehistoric notion that there’s nothing wrong with women that a good rogering won’t solve is almost impressively ugly. The idea that it’s all okay because it helps him get the bad guys, and the women get supreme sexual satisfaction is, to be blunt, gross. It says something about the film that, if you have any reservations about the way The Razor conducts himself, it seeks to cleanse his spirit in your minds in the final minutes by showing the softer side of Hanzo—he kindly assists a dying man by delivering the instantaneous death that the law forbids. Yes, we’re supposed to balance out the rape with assisted suicide. Grand.

There were diminishing returns to those loose-cannon cops. Once you’d seen them do their thing, any future adventures had little to promise but more of the same. That seems to be true for Hanzo, as well. Katsu played Hanzo in two sequels (still a far cry from his two dozen appearances as blind swordsman Zatoichi), with rape-as-investigative-technique a central part of his toolkit throughout. There’s no denying that the well-endowed detective makes a splash in his first outing. But given how he conducts himself, it’s probably best that he turn in his badge.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Hanzo the Razor:  Sword of Justice contains some jaw-dropping stuff early on.  However, the fun sort of dries up in the third act as the plot begins to meander and the weirdness starts to subside.” – Mitch Lovell, The Video Vacuum

(This movie was nominated for review by Cabra. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)         

Hanzo The Razor Sword of Justice

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