BRANDED TO KILL is a very strange movie. It’s one of those movies that gets called a “cult classic” more because people don’t understand it than there are actual cults devoted to it. Not a whole lot of crime proper in this movie, but a lot of weird, weird sex. If that’s the kind of thing you like, this is your movie.

About the illo, I wanted to try something as conceptual as the movie was. Not sure how I did, but I’m glad I finished it. Also, I like women. I like hot women. I like drawing hot women. But I don’t do it very often, as I think you can see. This movie had some real knock-out ladies in it, but my in abilities to communicate that to the board is a little frustrating. Still, practice makes perfect. I hope to draw more women this year than I have in years passed.

That might be it until Monday, so God Speed, Tino Titans.

Okay, Tino Titans, buckle up, Immo talk some serious movie here.

YAKUZA PAPERS is supposedly THE Yakuza movie to kick off the who 70′s crime film boom in Japan. It’s like the ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA of Yakuza films. My friends, whatever you think of the rest of the movie, the first 30 minutes are incredible.

The opening credits has a photo montage much like SOILENT GREEN, starting with a photo of an atomic explosion to illustrate the sudden and horrible slide into the poverty and disparity of post-war reconstruction Japan. To survive, you either signed to kiss American ass, whored yourself out, gambled, or cut people (so the movie shows anyway).

Shozo, the man with the gun in the illo, agrees to kill a Yakuza thug. He is thrown in prison and become cellmates with another Yakuza enforcer from a different family. Shozo’s cell mate plans to escape prison by being transfered to a hospital after cutting his belly open. He strikes a bargain with Shozo, he will get Shozo’s bail money if in turn Shozo strangles him to death if the pain of the fake attempted suicide is too much. Shozo’s bail is paid in a few months and he joins the Yakuza with his new blood brother.

And it’s all shootings, stabbings, and back-stabbings for the rest of the movie. But the raw depravity of the movies setup was just too… brilliant.  Hope you see it someday.