Editing Branded to Kill (section)

==Themes and style==
Like many of its yakuza film contemporaries, ''Branded to Kill'' shows the influence of the [[James Bond film series|James Bond films]] and [[film noir]],<ref name="Hughes">{{cite book|last=Hughes |first=Howard |title=Crime Wave: The Filmgoers' Guide to the Great Crime Movies |publisher=I.B. Tauris |year=2006 |isbn=1-84511-219-9 |chapter-url=http://www.ibtauris.com/ibtauris/display.asp?K=9781845112196 |pages=xvii |chapter=Criminal Record: An Introduction to Crime Movies |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928130649/http://www.ibtauris.com/ibtauris/display.asp?K=9781845112196 |archive-date=September 28, 2007 }}</ref><ref name="Le Samurai">{{cite web
| last = Trifonova
| first = Temenuga
| title = Cinematic Cool: Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï
| publisher = Senses of Cinema
|date=March 2006
| url = http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2006/cteq/samourai/
| access-date = 2007-04-11
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070128213524/http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/06/39/samourai.html| archive-date = January 28, 2007}}</ref> though the film's conventional genre basis was combined with [[satire]], [[kabuki]] stylistics and a [[Pop art in Japan|pop art]] aesthetic.<ref name="Sharp">{{cite web
| last = Sharp
| first = Jasper
| title = Review: Branded to Kill
| publisher = Midnight Eye
| date = March 2001
| url = http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/brandtok.shtml
| access-date = 2007-04-11
| archive-date = 2007-04-03
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070403104154/http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/brandtok.shtml
| url-status = live
}}</ref> It was further set apart from its peers, and Seijun Suzuki's previous films, through its [[Gothic fiction|gothic]] sensibilities, unusual atonal score and what artist and academic [[Philip Brophy]] called a "heightened otherness".<ref name="Brophy">{{cite web
 |last         = Brophy
 |first        = Philip
 |author-link   = Philip Brophy
 |title        = Catalogue notes for screenings
 |work         = A Lust For Violence: Seijun Suzuki
 |publisher    = Philip Brophy
 |year         = 2000
 |url          = http://www.philipbrophy.com/projects/suz/technical.html
 |access-date   = 2007-09-03
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20070927040357/http://www.philipbrophy.com/projects/suz/technical.html
 |archive-date = 2007-09-27
 |url-status     = dead
}}</ref> The result has been alternately ascribed as a work of [[surrealism]],<ref name="New York Times"/> [[absurdism]],<ref name="Edinburgh"/> the [[avant garde]]<ref name="Brophy"/> and included in the [[Japanese New Wave]] movement,<ref name="Desser">{{cite book
| last = Desser
| first = David
| title = Eros Plus Massacre: An Introduction to the Japanese New Wave Cinema
| publisher = [[Indiana University Press]]
| date = May 1988
| isbn = 0-253-31961-7
| chapter-url = https://archive.org/details/erosplusmassacre00davi/page/11
| page = [https://archive.org/details/erosplusmassacre00davi/page/11 11]
| chapter = Introduction
}}</ref> though not through any stated intention of its director. Suzuki employed a wide variety of techniques and claimed his singular focus was to make the film as entertaining as possible.<ref name="Branded to Kill DVD"/>

Genre conventions are satirized and mocked throughout the film.<ref name="Rayns">{{cite book
| last = Rayns
| first = Tony
| author-link = Tony Rayns
| title = Branded to Thrill: The Delirious Cinema of Suzuki Seijun
| publisher = Institute of Contemporary Arts
| year = 1994
| isbn = 0-905263-44-8
| page = 42
| chapter = 1967: Branded to Kill
}}</ref> In American noirs, heroes, or [[anti-hero]]es, typically strive to be the best in their field. Here the process was formalized into a rankings system obsessed over by its players.<ref name="Taylor">{{cite web
| last = Taylor
| first = Rumsey
| title = Branded to Kill
| publisher = notcoming.com
| date = July 2004
| url = http://www.notcoming.com/reviews/brandedtokill/
| access-date = 2007-10-01
| archive-date = 2012-10-22
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121022150216/http://notcoming.com/reviews/brandedtokill/
| url-status = live
}}</ref> The [[femme fatale]]—a noir staple—Misako, does not simply entice the protagonist and bring the threat of death but obsesses him and is obsessed with all things death herself. She tries to kill him, wants to kill herself and surrounds herself with dead things.<ref name="Sharp"/><ref name="Savant"/> Hanada's libido is as present as that of the protagonists of similar films of the period, such as [[James Bond]], though perversely exaggerated. Reviewer Rumsey Taylor likened Hanada's boiled rice sniffing fetish to Bond's "[[shaken, not stirred]]" martini order.<ref name="Taylor"/> The film also deviates from the opening killer-for-hire scenario to touch on such varied subgenres as [[Psychosexual development|psychosexual]] romance, American Gothic thriller and ''[[The Odd Couple (film)|Odd Couple]]'' [[slapstick]].<ref name="Brophy"/><ref name="DVD Times 2"/>

[[Image:Branded to Kill screenshot.jpg|300px|thumb|right|alt=Joe Shishido in close-up. Simple renderings of a bird overlay the left side of the frame with a large butterfly on the right.|After discovering he cannot bring himself to kill Misako, a dazed Hanada wanders the streets. Animated [[starling]]s, rain and butterflies mask the screen, accompanied by corresponding [[sound effect]]s.]]

The film industry is a subject of satire as well. For example, Japanese [[censorship]] often involved masking prohibited sections of the screen. Here Suzuki preemptively masked his own compositions but animated them and incorporated them into the film's design.<ref name="Rayns"/> In the story, after Hanada finds he is unable to kill Misako he wanders the streets in a state of confusion. The screen is obscured by animated images with accompanying sounds associated to her. The effects contributed to the eclectic visual and sound design while signifying his obsessive love. Author Stephen Teo proposed that the antagonistic relationship between Hanada and Number One may have been analogous of Suzuki's relationship with studio president Kyūsaku Hori. He compared Hanada's antagonizers to those who had been pressuring Suzuki to rein in his style over the previous two years. Teo cited Number One's sleeping with his eyes open and urinating where he sits, which the character explains as techniques one must master to become a "top professional."<ref name="Teo"/>

The film was shot in black and white Nikkatsuscope (synonymous with [[CinemaScope]] at a 2.35:1 [[Aspect ratio (image)|aspect ratio]]). Due to the wide frame, moving a character forward did not produce the dynamic effect Suzuki desired. Instead, he relied on spotlighting and [[chiaroscuro]] imagery to create excitement and suspense. Conventional framing and [[film grammar]] were disregarded in favour of spontaneous inspiration. In editing, Suzuki frequently abandoned continuity, favouring abstract jumps in time and space as he found it made the film more interesting.<ref name="Branded to Kill DVD"/> Critic David Chute suggested that Suzuki's stylistics had intensified—in seeming congruence with the studio's demands that he conform:

{{Blockquote|You can see the director reusing specific effects and pointedly cranking them up a notch. In ''[[Our Blood Will Not Forgive|Our Blood Will Not Allow It]]'', the two battling brothers had a heart-to-heart in a car that was enveloped, just for the hell of it, in gorgeous blue [[moiré pattern]]s of drenching rain. This "lost at sea" effect is revived in ''Branded to Kill'' but there's no sound at all in this version of the scene, except for the gangsters' hushed voices, echoless, plotting some fresh betrayal in a movie-movie isolation chamber.<ref name="Branded to Thrill">
{{cite book| last = Chute
| first = David
| title = Branded to Thrill: The Delirious Cinema of Suzuki Seijun
| publisher = Institute of Contemporary Arts
| year = 1994
| isbn = 0-905263-44-8
| pages = 11–17
| chapter = Branded to Thrill
}}</ref>}}