Outrage Coda, written, directed by and starring Takeshi Kitano

Outrage Coda, written, directed by and starring Takeshi Kitano

This good motion picture has had its premiere on HBO, where we are lucky to see many interesting, very recent features – this one was launched in 2017 – sometimes art movies, especially on the Cinemax channels of the cable network.

Outrage Coda is not very unusual in its proposal, although the standards, etiquette, habits, manners and rituals of the Yakuza would seem rather outré, exotic for Westerns accustomed to the Goodfellas rules and regulations playbook, although there are many similarities.

For instance, when an intruder does something wrong in a territory controlled by one gang, there is a price to pay, but the manner in which the incident developed in this film seems different.

The Japanese and Koreans – even those involved in organized crime - appear as more rational, adept at using strategy, if we compare them with Tommy deVito and James Conway from the classic Goodfellas.

When they have an argument, James Conway and especially Tommy DeVito resort to extreme violence – the film in which they are main characters opens with them stabbing a victim they had previously attacked and nearly killed, with tragic consequences, given the unknown fact that the soon to be dead body had been a “made man”.

In Outrage Coda, on grounds controlled by the Sanno family, headed by Mr. Chang, a crime is committed, sex workers are abused – and they also under the patronage of the said family.

The criminal who uses sadistic methods, inflicts injuries and pain on the women belongs to the Hanabishi clan, promises some reparations in a confrontation with Otomo aka Takeshi Kitano, the key figure, hero of the motion picture.

Otomo arrives on the scene when he learns about the abuse, tells the guilty party that he has to face consequences, which for some time seem to involve payments, and it is all directed with what looks like business acumen, patience, interest in profits and abstention from knee jerk reactions.

Make no mistake, they are not talking pleasantries, exchanging words of admiration, respect and extreme politeness, mixed with sever adulation…

Stupid is the word the audience would hear most – in Japanese that is…

The confronting Mafiosi mention reparations and various figures, which would climb astronomically from the original three million yen – which should be about thirty thousand dollars or less, considering the yen at a little over $ 100.

Returning to his family, the member of the Hanabishi clan talks about his experience, the stop he made on this island, where he got mad with his bodyguards for allowing him to be humiliated.

Mr. Chang is too powerful to ignore or refuse payment of damages for the sex workers – and one would presume, more importantly the insult of misbehaving in his territory – therefore a plan is set in motion to meet with the leader of the Sanno family and try to make amends.

It does not work, for at the negotiation – they seem like operators trying to fix deals, which they actually do, as Chang talks with advisers and sets various exorbitant prices for transactions involving property.

The Sanno group is again aggravated by the presence of lower rank criminals, when the case in point is so important and to add insult to injury, the two criminals who offer money to say sorry talk between them, thinking the others do not understand- as they are based in different countries- Korea and Japan.

The initial three million has been raised tenfold, but this is still inadequate given the developments, and in a shocking move – for outsiders and some of the less intellectually adroit gang members – the Sanno actually…add thirty million yen to the package?

How come?

In outré, elaborate rules, this comes down to a rejection and an invitation…nay, a request to top off the payback sum

Meanwhile, there are moves inside the Hanabishi clan that set one player against another, seeing as there is a power struggle and some try to benefit from the debacle that has angered the Sanno criminals.

Therefore, a plan is set in motion whereby rivals would murder competitors and blame it on Sanno – when the bodies would be found; they would assume that the enraged Chang must have ordered the executions

Only it gets complicated, because there are old timers involved, many of them with plenty of hours of strategy, planning and tactics in their training and experience who have guessed the move.

They prepare their own scheme, pretending they have indeed died, reporting their demise, only to act with more freedom, stealth and wrath…

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men

Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness…”

That works for Jules in the quintessential Pulp Fiction, but the ways of the gangsters in Outrage Coda is perhaps more Zen-like.