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As the police launch a full-scale crackdown on organized crime, it ignites a national yakuza struggle between the Sanno of the East and Hanabishi of the West.
The Underworld is a topic that is always hot in movies. See “Casino”, “Goodfellas”, “The Godfather” and “The Departed” for proof of that. People seem to have this fascination with them and movies always glamorize them, making them larger than life. In Japan, they are called the Yakuza and just like here in the U.S., there are warring families throughout various cities and regions. With “Beyond Outrage”, a sequel to the 2010 movie “Outrage”, a former Yakuza boss, Otomo (Takeshi Kitano), is released from prison and is determined to go straight but gets caught up in an aging cop’s intricate plan to rid the city of all the Yakuza by playing both sides, trying to pit them against each other.
Otomo, believed to have been killed on the inside in an altercation, just wants to get on with his life but within his old crime family, the Sannos, the old guards are growing wary of the new, young executives’ methods and turn to Otomo to try and bring order to the family but their local rivals, the Hanabishis, have other ideas. Sometimes, when you sit down to watch a movie, it flows, from beginning to end. You understand the film’s movement and its narrative and by the end, you either like the movie or you don’t. Either way, the progression of the story is paramount in the audience understanding what’s going on within.
With “Beyond Outrage”, the film had no coherent framework. We are introduced to characters and find out a little about them and then we meet some more characters and then some more after them and this cycle continues. We are made aware of many different aspects within the film’s storyline but after a while, they all end up multiplying on top of each other and some of them culminate with no satisfactory resolution. Because this is a sequel, I feel that maybe I should have watched the original but for me, a sequel should be able to stand on its own feet, independent of what may have come before it and I feel, even if I had watched the first film, it would not have made this one any better.
In stores March 11th
