Radiance Films: Agitator (2001) - Reviewed

Images courtesy of Radiance Films

Prolific V-cinema turned theatrical filmmaking provocateur/punk rock star Takashi Miike first got into features in the year of 1995 with Shinjuku Triad Society which was the first in a trilogy of films called the Black Society Trilogy.  Making up to four or five films per year, the director’s first real international splash came in the form of his 1999 romantic horror drama Audition.  Only two years later, Miike achieved significant international notoriety in 2001 between his DV shocker Visitor Q, his ultraviolent manga adaptation Ichi the Killer and his musical remake of The Quiet Family with The Happiness of the Katakuris.  Usually known for his flamboyant outlandish larger than life cartoonishly transgressive style, Miike was something of a kaleidoscopic multicolored bad boy mixing in glitzy colorful imagery with grit and grain.  Which makes his sprawling expansive 2001 straight laced yakuza yarn Agitator from future Miike screenwriter Shigenori Takechi of Graveyard of Honor and Izo that much more of an outlier in his diverse oeuvre. 

 
Senior executive and yakuza Mr. Kaito (Hiroki Matsukata from The Rapacious Jailbreaker) is on the cusp of absorbing soldiers from rival yakuza factions under the veil of the Tenseikai Syndicate.  The problem is Kunihiko Kenzaki (Masaya Kato) of the Higuchi Gang, a scrappy group of street mobsters staking out on their own, interferes with a plot by Muroi (Kenichi Endo of The Raid 2) of the Shirane Group to start trouble with the help of Shinozake (Miike in a cameo as an abusive sociopath).  After taking out Shinozake, an outside assassin named Numata (Hakuryu) is summoned to take out the leader of the Yokomizo Family.  Catching wind of the murder plots, Kunihiko and his newly formed Kenzaki Squad take matters into their own hands and kidnap Muroi, beating and torturing him into spilling the beans on recorded tape, threatening an all-out expansive yakuza war that plays out brutally on the streets and alleyways of Japan.

 
Previously unavailable for over twenty years in the United States and released in both the original 150-minute theatrical version alongside an extended 200-minute two-part VHS tape release, Agitator makes its US Blu-ray disc premiere via Radiance Films for the first time in a newly restored high-definition digital transfer from Kadokawa Pictures supervised by cinematographer Kiyoshi Ito.  Down, drab and dirty featuring a somber harmonic score by recurring Miike composer Koji Endo and rendered with monaural sound, Agitator is perhaps closest of Miike’s films to Graveyard of Honor which intentionally siphoned all the glitz, pizazz and wacky outlandish dark humor pulsing through Dead or Alive and Ichi the Killer out of it.  The result is one of Miike’s most sobering and underrated yakuza efforts, a film that kind of demystifies the aura surrounding yakuza and expectations of the yakuza picture.

 
Featuring Miike’s usual group of character actors including Renji Ishibashi, Kenichi Endo and Shall We Dance? actor Naoto Takenaka, the ensemble saga more or less centers around Masaya Kato as the troublemaking Kunihiko who will murder his way out of a dangerous situation to get closer to the truth even as his fellow yakuza comrades start dropping like flies.  A subplot in the film involves a kid forcibly getting yakuza tattoos etched on his back and how he recoils into a kind of feral state from the invasion done against his body.  Early on with Miike’s cameo, there’s the time-honored use of sexual battery with foreign objects, something that will catch the uninitiated off guard.  But with that said, this is one of Miike’s more understated and restrained efforts with a couple of moments optically censored over graphic violence, instead focusing on the unglamourous day-to-day machinations of yakuza life such as bathing or eating or cleaning their laundry.

 
Released in 2001 following Ichi the Killer, Agitator feels almost like a pumping of the brakes for Takashi Miike slowing down the hyperkinetic audiovisual approach in favor of something more meat-and-potatoes down to Earth.  Opting for largely handheld camerawork, a leisurely pace and emphasis on the familial aspect of the yakuza empire, Agitator is a dense and elongated intermediary period between the hard manga violence of Ichi the Killer and the playful silly musicality of The Happiness of the Katakuris.  Radiance Films disc comes fairly well stacked with extras including a standard-definition port of the 200-minute version of the film.  Also included is a new audio commentary and written essay by Miike expert Tom Mes and a newly filmed interview with Takashi Miike exclusively conducted by Radiance Films.  As with the packaging, there’s reversible sleeve art and the OBI-spine which feels perfect for a Miike film.  To see Miike finally get canonized by the Radiance Films moniker is an exciting development which hopefully holds more acquisitions of his in the near future. 

--Andrew Kotwicki