Bullet BalletGrief drives some people down the dark corridors of their soul. Bullet Ballet is a movie about a man named Goda (Shinya Tsukamoto, who also writes and directs) who learns that his girlfriend, Kiriko (Kyōka Suzuki), committed suicide by handgun. The confused and pained Goda struggles to contemplate why she would do such a thing, but more importantly, how she came to possess a handgun, which is otherwise illegal for a citizen to own in Japan. Goda gets it into his head that she was asked to hold onto it by a yakuza. Subsequently, Goda's life follows a downward trajectory as he tries to obtain a gun with which to take revenge; but revenge for whom remains murky.
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Bullet Ballet constantly flirts with the idea of becoming a movie like Death Wish, but as Goda's path of revenge is filled with a few too many hurdles for him to overcome, it seems more like some higher power is trying to keep him from chasing this self-destructive urge to completion. Goda lives a fairly comfortable life as a advertiser, with good prospects for his future. But he is all too willing to throw it away over some vague notion that Kiriko should be avenged. It becomes clear in a flashback that despite what Goda presumed was a healthy--if noncommittal--relationship for ten years, she harbored secrets, some of which she took to her grave. Bullet Ballet is frequently vague or ambiguous about how Goda comes to focus his aggression on the particular pack of thugs that he does, but there is little to no evidence linking them with his girlfriend's death. Seemingly going to visit a client on behalf of a coworker, he recognizes a young punk woman named Chisato (Kirina Mano), who bit his hand one day on the subway as he tried to pull her from being struck by a train. (What Goda doesn't know is that Chisato likes to play a game where she dangles dangerously close to a passing train, filled with her own self-destructive urges and a fondness for speed.) After Chisato lips off to him after he confronts her, she calls in her boyfriend, Goto (Takahiro Murase), and his rough buddies to mug and assault Goda. From here, Goda fixates on Chisato, Goto, and his crew, and makes them the target of his revenge. He clumsily plies black market street hoods for a gun, specifically a "Chief Special", the same gun Kiriko used to take her life; but the hapless Goda only gets ripped off in the process. The driven Goda then hits on the idea of making a gun from scrap parts...which works out about as well as it sounds like it would. Goda studies and devotes all of his energy to this, but still comes up short at a critical moment. And yet he continues along this path, when every sign is screaming at him to let it go. Like many of Tsukamoto's films, transformation is a key theme, and Bullet Ballet is no different. Goda is ultimately less obsessed with the untimely death of his late girlfriend than the grief that it brought about in him that feels unjustified. He feels powerless and weak, confused and small. As Goda's obsession with getting a gun grows, he becomes convinced that it will be the only thing that will make him feel whole again.
Goda's story finds a parallel in the relationship between Chisato and Goto. Goto feels a great deal of envy for a boxer, and that feeling begins to consume him. He even tries his hand at working a straight job, which prompts some derisive comments from his gang boss, a sleaze named Idei (Tatsuya Nakamura). Chisato constantly flirts with death, and as the story progresses, Goto becomes increasingly anxious and feels helpless and weak. Take one scene where Goto deliberately antagonizes a cop who profiled him previously and accused Goto of stealing his own bike. The cop abuses his authority to bully Goto, much like Goto did when he beat up Goda. Through a twist of events, Goda eventually comes into possession of the revolver he had sought, and tries to ambush Idei's gang in the midst of a nasty scrap with a rival outfit. But ironically, Goda only ends up making their dust up all the easier for Idei's gang, and Goto even manages to get Goda's gun away from him, giving him an edge when he robs other poor souls afterwards. But somehow, what happens is that these three disparate souls somehow find a kind of broken camaraderie between them. It starts when Idei tells Goto and Chisato to drive Goda home--as some kind of misguided appreciation for helping him win his fight, perhaps--and when they do, Goda tells them that this is where his girlfriend killed herself, and asks Goto to take his life. Despite his pettiness and cruel streak, Goto resists the impulse to kill, at least for now. Later, Idei pushes him to go off someone else with the gun he's been flashing around, less to punish him, but to try to pull him back into the criminal fold, which only causes him to break down like Goda did. In these moments, they start to sympathize with one another; they don't exactly become friends, but they see how they support one another when they hit rock bottom. And when the dust clears and their respective demons have been exorcized, Goda and Chisato don't just walk away from another--they sprint like their lives depended on it. And if their lives didn't, their souls certainly do, because they've had to deal with the aftermath of their dalliance with darkness.
Recommended for: Fans of a raw and brutal drama about obsession and powerlessness set against the urban jungle of Tokyo, in harsh and gritty black and white. The story of Bullet Ballet isn't always cohesive and at times dances to its own tune, but for fans of Tsukamoto's oeuvre, it is another great entry depicting desperate people becoming "monsters" to try to assuage their inner pain.
Goda's story finds a parallel in the relationship between Chisato and Goto. Goto feels a great deal of envy for a boxer, and that feeling begins to consume him. He even tries his hand at working a straight job, which prompts some derisive comments from his gang boss, a sleaze named Idei (Tatsuya Nakamura). Chisato constantly flirts with death, and as the story progresses, Goto becomes increasingly anxious and feels helpless and weak. Take one scene where Goto deliberately antagonizes a cop who profiled him previously and accused Goto of stealing his own bike. The cop abuses his authority to bully Goto, much like Goto did when he beat up Goda. Through a twist of events, Goda eventually comes into possession of the revolver he had sought, and tries to ambush Idei's gang in the midst of a nasty scrap with a rival outfit. But ironically, Goda only ends up making their dust up all the easier for Idei's gang, and Goto even manages to get Goda's gun away from him, giving him an edge when he robs other poor souls afterwards. But somehow, what happens is that these three disparate souls somehow find a kind of broken camaraderie between them. It starts when Idei tells Goto and Chisato to drive Goda home--as some kind of misguided appreciation for helping him win his fight, perhaps--and when they do, Goda tells them that this is where his girlfriend killed herself, and asks Goto to take his life. Despite his pettiness and cruel streak, Goto resists the impulse to kill, at least for now. Later, Idei pushes him to go off someone else with the gun he's been flashing around, less to punish him, but to try to pull him back into the criminal fold, which only causes him to break down like Goda did. In these moments, they start to sympathize with one another; they don't exactly become friends, but they see how they support one another when they hit rock bottom. And when the dust clears and their respective demons have been exorcized, Goda and Chisato don't just walk away from another--they sprint like their lives depended on it. And if their lives didn't, their souls certainly do, because they've had to deal with the aftermath of their dalliance with darkness.
Recommended for: Fans of a raw and brutal drama about obsession and powerlessness set against the urban jungle of Tokyo, in harsh and gritty black and white. The story of Bullet Ballet isn't always cohesive and at times dances to its own tune, but for fans of Tsukamoto's oeuvre, it is another great entry depicting desperate people becoming "monsters" to try to assuage their inner pain.