Sêrâ-fuku to Kikanjû
1981 / 131m - Japan
Crime
3.0*/5.0*
Sailor Suit and Machine Gun poster

Watches

October 22, 2020

3.0*/5.0*

Not the crazy genre fest you may expect from the title (or even the premise of the film), but a rather stylish and well-made coming of age drama set against a Yakuza background. This is only my second Somai film so far, but it seems I should be paying a bit more attention to his oeuvre in the future.

When a Yakuza boss dies, he carries over his gang to his nephew. What he doesn't know at that time is that his nephew isn't alive anymore. In that case the responsibility is carried over to the next of kind, but that turns out to be Izumi Hoshi, a young school girl who has never seen a Yakuza member up close.

Sailor Suit and Machine Gun has its share of genre elements (yes, at one point Izumi empties a machine gun in a room full of gangsters), but most of the film is a lot slower, reminding me a bit of Kitano's crime oeuvre, with people just hanging around. The cinematography is pretty nice too, the only thing that bothered me was the mediocre performance of Hiroko Yakushimaru as Izumi. An interesting film though, well recommended.