Sailor Suit and Machine Gun

[DarkImbecile]

A perky high-schooler takes on the mob in Sailor Suit and Machine Gun, a one-of-a-kind genre-bender that riffs on the yakuza film, coming-of-age drama and ‘idol movie’, inventively adapted from Jiro Akagawa's popular novel by director Shinji Somai (Typhoon Club, Wait and See), a massively influential figure in Japanese cinema whose work has been little seen outside his homeland.

Hoshi Izumi is a young innocent forced to grow up quickly when her father dies and she finds herself next in line as the boss of a moribund yakuza clan. Wrenched from the security of her classroom and thrust into the heart of the criminal underworld, she must come to terms with the fact that her actions hold the key to the life or death of the men under her command as they come under fire from rival gangs.

Presented in both its Original Theatrical and longer Complete versions, and the first time one of Somai's films has been released on home video in the West, this landmark work from his early career was responsible for launching teen talent Hiroko Yakushimaru (Legend of the Eight Samurai; Detective Story) as the iconic face of a generation, with the catchy theme song she performs indelibly etched into the zeitgeist of early-1980s Japan.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS

• High Definition Blu-rayTM (1080p) presentations of the Original Theatrical Version and the 1982 Complete Version (kanpeki-ban) re-issue of the film, restored by Kadokawa Pictures from a 4K scan of the original negative
• Original uncompressed Japanese mono and 5.1 audio
• Optional English subtitles
• Girls, Guns and Gangsters: Shinji Somai & Sailor Suit & Machine Gun, an exclusive new 50-minute documentary featuring actor Akira Emoto, film scholar Chika Kinoshita, Somai biographer Tatsuya Kimura and Sailor Suit assistant director Koji Enomoto discussing the making of the film, its director and its legacy
• Original Trailers and TV spots for both versions
• Image Gallery
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Michael Lemon

[roujin]

More interested in the documentary itself than the movie, which did not work for me, unlike basically every Somai film that followed. But I'd like to give it a second look.

[yoloswegmaster]

There is a booklet that's not listed for some reason, and it includes new essays by Aaron Gerow and Alexander Zahlten and an exclusive discussion transcript between Kiyoshi Kurosawa (who was an assistant on this film) and star Hiroko Yakushimaru.

[feihong]

The two different versions they talk about interest me quite a bit. I've only seen one cut of the movie. From that I do think, like roujin, that this is one of the least impressive of Somai's movies from a modern lens, though it is a kind of parody of the yakuza thriller, and perhaps a forerunner to and inspiration for what Takeshi Kitano was doing in his movies from Violent Cop through Hana-bi, and maybe an inspiration for some of Shinji Aoyama's early movies, like Helpless and Wild Life. I kind of wish there was an audio commentary where someone got to talk about Somai's other movies and introduce some of them to western audiences––because I'm hoping this leads to Arrow releasing blu rays of Typhoon Club and P.P. Rider at least, and maybe even Luminous Woman, so long as I'm dreaming.

But that's a pretty cool cover.

[Michael Kerpan]

Wow. I watched the expanded (by 20 minutes or so) version -- and was shocked how bleak this was. I didn't remember this being nearly so (almost) unrelentingly dark back when I last watched this 15+ years ago. There are aspects of this that, perhaps, "don't fully work" -- but the work as a whole is pretty audacious. Not much resemblance to any other "idol movie" I've encountered. There were a few scenes that had a bit of humor and others that were pretty weird (the segment involving Fatso, particularly) -- but not sure this can be classified as a "parody". The overall tone seemed more like Suzuki than Kitano. Having such a young (16-ish) Hiroko Yakushimaru as the central character made the film more than a bit disconcerting -- given all she has to cope with in terms of plot.

There are definitely Somai films I prefer, but it was great to see how respectfully this release was treated. It is interesting to see a BluRay release where almost all the essays/features involve people I know personally (Chika Kinoshita, Alexander Zahlten and Aaron Gerow). The essays by the latter two are quite worthwhile -- but I haven't watched the on-disc extras yet.

I certainly hope this sells well enough to induce Arrow to release more Somai films.

[Calvin]

Received this direct from the Arrow Store yesterday and duly delved in. I have to echo Michael's comments above - Arrow have done right by this release and hopefully the first release of a Shinji Somai film in the West isn't also the last. Worth noting that it has been encoded by David Mackenzie / Fidelity in Motion, so looks as great as you would expect. There is a moment of optical censorship at the 61-minute mark which, as explained in the booklet, is "present in the original materials and is consistent with Japanese censorship practices from the period."

The booklet is particularly good, the best that I've read from Arrow in a while. I did notice that it said that the conversation between Hiroko Yakushimaru and Kiyoshi Kurosawa was recorded exclusively for Arrow, so I wonder if it was perhaps initially planned to be a video extra?

[Orlac]

It's funny how Japanese cinema can be so perverted yes so prudish at the same time.

[Michael Kerpan]

That interview was really wonderful, even in printed form -- but it would have been even better if seen (perhaps).

[therewillbeblus]

I haven't seen many Somais yet, but if this is among his worst, sign me up for the whole canon. While I thought this was pretty great (at least the extended director's cut, didn't watch the original shorter version), it's definitely inconsistently pitched, but that's kinda his 'thing', right? The same change-ups of style -with familiar juxtapositions of involving moving subjective camera/static aloof long shots clashing just as hard as pacing and plot shenanigans- are similar to those in P.P. Rider, though not as densely packed or successfully delivered in their tonal ambitions. The theatrical interplay culminates in some fun zeniths of artifice-meets-raw emotional truth, but whatever satirical aims bite on the surface linger with a bitter aftertaste as nearly every incitement.

This film owes more to noir than yakuza crime films, as the central principal's innocence and general outsider status plants her in a gravitational pull of doomed intersections of harm, and constantly reminds us of how devastating it is that these antisocial vehicles of violence are suffocating every crevice of the milieus she runs to and from. It's interesting that our lead is always rescued in some form by an older female, a kind of fairy godmother intervention which itself has unsettling implications for its implausibility, as if the rescue's function is to reveal how Somai needs to exhaustively insert an alien variable into his world in order to keep the film going; saving this little girl with pronounced omnipotent intrusion. Like P.P. Rider, there's a fluid yanking going in friction with the lead and the audience toward the liberating playground of imagination and the grounded sobriety to the corporeal threats among us.

The 'Fatso' segment was actually my favorite, bringing us into a mad-scientist/Bond villain type scenario only pitched at horror for the apathy of the perpetrator (and Somai's detached, apathetic relationship to him, making him an almost-Godlike enigma we're not able to engage with on any extremist level of interest or repulsion- when an extreme position is what we need to signal security) and the way the camera elided our lead casually and then with a jarring shift to a vacation behind the glass. This kind of setpiece would play out completely differently for the audience if we were 'let in' a bit more, but Somai is a master at alienating us when he needs to prove a point; though his 'points' revolve around imbuing uncomfortable sensations rather than asserting some didactic statement. So if this is satire, that aspect feels like surface-level gags coating a layered core of isolated vulnerability, fear, majesty, playfulness, social intimacy and disengagement, and deterministic influences and thinking patterns, which ultimately lands us with chillingly pessimistic final lines that secludes the speaker.. overlapping a visual representation of that narrator indulging in a interpersonally harmonic happy ending! Oof