
Radiance Films
Blu-ray Release: September 24th, 2024
Video: 2.39:1/1080p/Color
Audio: Japanese LPCM 2.0
Subtitles: English
Run Time: 86:34
Director: Seijun Suzuki
Up-and-coming Yakuza member Tetsutaro, aka Tetsu (Hideki Takahashi) is enlisted to kill a rival gang member. He completes the job, but afterward, instead of being promoted, his boss tries to kill him. Tetsu's younger brother Kenji (Kotobuki Hananomoto) kills the would-be assassin, a move which saves Tetsu's life but puts them both in danger from the cops and further retaliation from the Yakuza. Tetsu makes a plan to get them to Manchuria, where they can hide out, but after they're ripped off by a local grifter, they're forced to pick up work before they can leave. The pair embed themselves with a construction crew building a dam, but trouble arises for both of them as they each become romantically entangled: Tetsu catches the eye of Midori (Masako Izumi), and Kenji, unfortunately, becomes infatuated with Midori's older sister Masayo (Hiroko Ito)...who also happens to be the wife of their boss, Yuzo (Yamanouchi Akira).
Back in the DVD era, fans of director Seijun Suzuki could mostly count on The Criterion Collection to bring his films to the United States. Tokyo Drifter, Branded to Kill, Youth of the Beast, Fighting Elegy, Gate of Flesh, and Story of a Prostitute all landed with the label, as well as Take Aim at the Police Van, through their Eclipse line, inside the Nikkatsu Noir box set. Mysteriously (to me, anyway), two others ended up with the company that distributed Criterion's DVDs, but were not granted entry into the collection: Tattooed Life and Underworld Beauty were instead distributed by Home Vision Entertainment. Nowadays, labels like Arrow Video and the UK's Eureka have joined Criterion in bringing Suzuki's work to high definition, and Radiance Films has snagged the rights to the latter two titles for their worldwide premiere on Blu-ray.

I saw Tattooed Life on that HVE DVD many years ago and remembered liking it, but watching it again, with more of Suzuki's catalog in mind, the film feels like it belongs at the center of a Venn diagram with many of his bigger, more famous works -- something that makes it even more confusing as to why Criterion didn't pick it up. There are bits of Tokyo Drifter, Gate of Flesh, as well as the youth melodramas that Suzuki cut his teeth on before breaking out in genre fare. There's a level of artifice to the acting and locations that makes the film's convoluted drama feel like a Shakespearean stage play, while also building to the stylized, hyperpop visuals that many associate with Suzuki's work.
The film's story, which follows Tetsu and Kenji as they get hustled by a low-level con artist and slowly but surely hustle their way into the dam construction gig (including a classic instance of men bonding by fighting it out), takes awhile to settle down into a clear narrative, but once Kenji first sees Masayo, things settle into a groove. Hananomoto's performance in his scenes with Ito are pure melodrama, the kind where a character might actually extend their hand toward another person, overcome with emotion, before turning away and dramatically throwing themselves against a wall. Suzuki handles the romance with a certain tragic poetry; even though Kenji's behavior threatens his and Tetsu's safety, there is the sense that Suzuki understands and even believes in the idea that both of them are getting something they desperately lack out of the relationship (even if, in Kenji's case, there is a clear Oedipal thing going on, where he sees Masayo as both a potential lover and a replacement for his own mother).

Tetsu, on the other hand, is filled with shame. Even before Kenji kills to save him, Tetsu's dream is that Kenji go to an art school to hone his drawing skills, and he's wracked with guilt that his own descent into criminal behavior is threatening Kenji's future. When Midori flirts with him, he closes down, both because he believes that indulging himself would be another act of selfishness that may derail someone else's life, and also because he feels his Yakuza lifestyle has tainted him, both literally and figuratively -- the "tattooed life" in question. When Yuzo finally gets wind of Kenji's attraction to his wife, one might expect any confrontation between Yuzo and Tetsu, who stands between Yuzo and Kenji, to go a certain way, but Tetsu's honesty and self-awareness bring out a more interesting reaction from Yuzo than anger.
While the interpersonal drama rages, Suzuki has an eye on the political backdrop of the time period, including relationships between warring families, the solidarity that exists among the workers (as well as the women in a nearby club), and everyone's relationship with the police (identified by their bright red shoes). Tracking it all can be a little complicated, especially in terms of determining what's there for color and verisimilitude and what's actually important to the story, but ultimately, Suzuki is more interested in the melodrama, which he combines with bold, colorful sets and clean, almost comic book-like blocking in a memorable swordfight finale. It's fair to say that Tattooed Life may be a little overstuffed, but it's also more than worthy of consideration as part of Suzuki's storied career.
Video
A note inside the booklet says that Nikkatsu provided the digital transfer for this disc, but provides no actual background information on it. Is it new? Is it 2K or 4K? I went back and forth watching it: is this a recent effort that is hitting the ceiling on what can be made from whatever elements remain, or is this a slightly older transfer that holds up really well? Ultimately, the end of the film, which features a little more in the way of print damage, swayed me into the latter camp: my guess is that this is a mid-2010s HD remaster that offers a satisfactory image. There's definitely a softness to the image even in close-up -- don't expect especially fine detail -- but I'm still certain this is a major upgrade over the 21-year-old Home Vision Entertainment DVD, the last time Tattooed Life was made available on disc in the United States. Colors look just a touch washed through the early and more naturalistic parts of the movie, aside from some outdoor daytime scenes that offer a bit of extra pop, but then the more stylized final sequences have a very satisfying level of saturation when it comes to rich reds and the sequence with the sliding doors. All things considered, I expect fans will be solidly happy with this, even if they aren't blown away.
Audio
A LPCM 2.0 Japanese audio track is surprisingly crisp, making a meal out of Masayoshi Ikeda's unusual score. Some atmospheric effects are nice and dialogue sounds fine. Nothing to write home about, but it gets the job done and offers some occasional stand-out moments. English subtitles are also provided. It's not important, but these are British English -- "enroll" is spelled "enrol," for example.

Extras
As is usually the case with international films from decades past, there's not much to offer in the way of extras aside from a new commentary. It's also a little unclear what it means that the two interviews were "newly-edited" for Radiance in 2024 -- has the footage never been seen before, or did Radiance just feel that the pieces could stand to have some fat cut out of them?
Audio commentary by Will Carroll, author of Suzuki Seijun and Japanese Post-War Cinema - This track is a treasure trove of contextual information that, as one can probably guess from the title of Carroll's book, not only helps place Tattooed Life within Suzuki's career, but also the Japanese film industry at the point in which it was made. Carroll fills in historical details that Suzuki is integrating into the film that may not be obvious to Western audiences, as well as other details about the rest of the cast and crew. Although this is one of those tracks that feels like it may have been pre-written, Carroll has a casual approach that keeps his commentary from feeling too stiff.
Newly-edited archival interview with Seijun Suzuki from 2006 (10:30) - Suzuki chats about his early love of films and philosophy toward making them, including his love of stylistic flourishes that turn them more pulpy and less realistic. He discusses drawing on Italian neorealism and Westerns, his history in the industry, navigating collaborations with actors, his famous battles and eventual firing from Nikkatsu, and some of the things that happened afterward, including a student protest when the studio refused to allow them to screen his films. Note that this interview is not specific to Tattooed Life, although he does talk at length about working with Takahashi.
Newly-edited archival interview with art director Takeo Kimura from 2006 (11:36) - Kimura discusses his initial approach to filmmaking, meeting Suzuki for the first time and his impressions of him, and finally beginning to work with him several years later. He goes through some of their early works and discusses the push-and-pull of integrating Suzuki's ideas with his own, or Suzuki reacting to some of the choices that he made in realizing Suzuki's ideas. Like the interview with Suzuki himself, this piece is not focused in any way on Tattooed Life.
Original Theatrical Trailer (3:05)
As is standard for Reliance releases, this one-disc release also comes with a paper card that wraps around the spine until the plastic wrap is removed, as well as reversible cover artwork. Inside the case, there is a 19-page booklet with writing by Tom Vick, as well as a contemporaneous review of the film newly translated from Japanese.

Conclusion
Tattooed Life isn't perfect, but it absolutely deserves a spot on the shelf of any Suzuki fan. This new Radiance Blu-ray is similar, offering an imperfect but nonetheless solid transfer, some new-ish extras, and a nice commentary track, all in a handsome package. Recommended.
The images on this page are taken from the Blu-ray and sized for the page. Larger versions can be viewed by clicking the images. Note that there will be some JPG compression.
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