Dreadfully Boring

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

OK I know this is based on the manga but I won't blame the manga. Because this movie, while it should faithfully and integrally match and live up to the literature it's based on, is a stand alone project. And it fell. First off...this is not Ichi the Killer. People don't need to stop trying to be Ichi the Killer because after all you emulate classics. But they need to stop trying to be Ichi the Killer whilst also trying to outdo it. It won't work. It simply won't work. I have no idea what Ando Masanobu was doing in this film after his amazing opening scene as Vertebrae. I have no idea what the film in general was doing after the amazing opening scene. I was locked in, mesmerized, laughing, entertained, but in hindsight it was overdone while underdone. Like a frozen burger cooked on high heat: it looks good and ready to serve but then you realize everything on the inside is a mess. Maybe they should have had a different director. The film was all over the place. And the "mystery" about who killed the yakuza boss in the beginning? I didn't even realize this was a mystery. ****SPOILER ALERT**** First of all the opening scene shows who killed the mobster, so why make it a mystery who set him up? It's hard to realize it was a setup in the first place. I mean, he's a yakuza boss. People will show up to kill you. So I guess this film was intentionally not a legit whodunnit murder mystery, but more so showing us who killed him already so the viewers laugh at the yakuza hypothesizing how he died. OK. But it leads to a slue of senseless violence so I didn't laugh. So the film fails either way. It wasn't funny. I realize Japanese films either give a deep, serious gaze into the yakuza underworld, or do a parody of it. And so far only Takashi Miike can successfully do both. Not even Sion Sono can do yakuza like Miike! But OK, not everyone can be number 1 but they still must try, I get it. Ichi the Killer (also credit to its manga author/illustrator, and I have peeked through the manga and it looks damn good and I don't even read manga), successfully blends and juxtaposes (did I use that word right? Whatever) humor and gore; bleach blond Kakihara (not Ichi but Ichi's rival) was funny, cool, sexy, creepy, insane, adorable. Partly because it was played by Asano Tadanobu, and mostly because it was filmed by someone who knows what the hell they're doing. The director here didn't know how to put 1 and 1 together. It was filmed retrospectively for no reason. Just to be filmed retrospectively? Because it didn't add to the mystery. Retrospect is supposed to show a blur in the memory and then clear things up with flashbacks. That didn't happen here! The girl they chose to play the yakuza's wife was no good and with her wig it took me a while to realize she's from Sono's Love Exposure 2008. Yea she wasn't good in that either.Firstly the movie is about...lots of things. A NEET who wants to be an actor and addicted to pachinko gambling gets caught up in the underworld and has to work as a corpse mover (cool concept to be honest). And Vertebrae is on the run after massacring the Japanese yakuza. He is part of the Triad. Meanwhile the Japanese hunt for the killer. This somehow entangles the NEET, the corpse delivery driver and his righthand man, who for 2 minutes was f***ing hilarious: an old man who talks like a little kid and skips and sings when he gets food. However while it adds to the silliness it doesn't work as a parody since nothing connects. Whereas in Sono's movie "Play in Hell" they made the yakuza clumsy and silly, as well as absurdly violent. Thus it worked as a yakuza parody. This, did not.Like there's a scene where the NEET is kidnapped by the yakuza rival of Vertebrae. He gets tortured by a yakuza in a diaper... None of it is done cool nor funny. While Ichi the Killer, somehow...it all was. And the revenge the NEET gets was anti-climactic. I imagine it was supposed to be a showdown where the crowd cheers for him. But it fell flat because the director took up SO much time with all the useless nonsense and could've saved screen time to add to the climax of this scene. He was the good guy suffering for no reason and his revenge wasn't played out well. He was sent there as a lamb, yet this is meant to be some life lesson for him. It might have worked but it was badly done.And the action. It was garbage. CGI, slow-mo, sped up garbage. Sure Ando Masanobu can swing those iron nunchucks pretty well but they should've stuck to that. His moves become silly nonhuman stuff and it takes away from the badass he's meant to be. If this was a fantasy film someone should've told me. Or, if that was supposed to be funny someone should've told me. The gore also was ridiculous because psychologically those who like good gory films wanna see the victim either get revenge or have the bad guy be the victim. This film had neither.OK so it wasn't funny. It wasn't cool. The torture was CGI or wasn't even shown, and wasn't justified nor avenged. The plot was all over the place. The actors sucked ass so bad. The costume design made the film look tacky and stupid. Much unlike Miike's "Like a Dragon." Which I'm gonna go watch again to wash this stupidness from my brain.

I go to TIFF every year in search or exciting, crazy, innovative new movies to watch that I would normally not have the opportunity to do so. Well I am glad to say that this is just one of those films. the story, mixed with the script, the acting and of course the fight sequences left me breathless. I have yet to see one Asian movie at TIFF that has disappointed me. But like I always tell people you better have a strong stomach and be prepared to see some things on the screen that might make you queezy. besides that grab a big bag of popcorn take your date and be prepared to be shocked till your hearts content. At the screening I was at a few girls did ave to leave the theatre so be prepared and don't say I didn't warn you.

Smuggler suffers from poor scriptwriting as it is hard to tell whose story is being featured for the viewer. The failed actor Kinuta, Vertebrae the assassin, the truck driver, or even the yakuza wife Ms. Tanuma could each make a good protagonist. But not all four at the expense of a coherent story line and finale.Kinuta's intro is so brief that the advertised plot line "failed actor deep in debt" is hard to sense. A mobile phone ad campaign, not in the film at all, showing Kinuta going through failed casting calls sounds like the prelude that might have helped. Ishii has one or two brief flashbacks that make Kinuta appear like a failed singer instead of an actor (even the set looks like a night club); were it not for English subtitles that should not be needed at all to get this idea across.The first yakuza scenes, supposedly scripted for comedy effects, elicited a few very short chuckles at the Hawaii International Film Festival showing I attended. After that the HIFF audience, who seemed mostly there anticipating the all star cast, sat in complete silence. They left as the credits were rolling.The ramen meal breaks and the night truck driving scenes could have been the making of a well-rounded portrayal of Kinuta, but Ishii devotes as much time to these scenes as can be seen in the film trailer! And indeed these scenes are edited like TV commercial breaks in the middle of the feature story. He zips through them to make time for the very extended violence he is aiming for. The very final scene is set in an incongruous setting for ending the tale of a failed actor. Ishii is credited as Writer, Director, Editor, and Storyboarder of this film. I suppose that is why successful films have an expert in each.I have seen the cast in many other films and this one is near their collective bottom.

"Please laugh if you're not sure whether it's disturbing or funny," says director Ishii Kazuhiro at TIFF."Smuggler" is based on a single-volume manga about a failed actor who becomes an underground mover to pay back $30,000 (non-inflated exchange rate) in fraudulent debt to a Chinese gang. This is the type of movies where the plot is driven by quirky dark humor rather than logic, as the protagonist Kinuta gets deeper and deeper into trouble in the most unlikely turn of events imaginable.It was the two "legendary assassins" Vertebrae (Andou Masanobu) and Viscera (Teiryuushin) who stole the spotlight though. There's quite a bit of action scenes throughout the film by those two in the most wacky form of violence. Vertebrae in particular was among the coolest, baddest villain ever. "Smuggler" is in no way for the faint of heart though. The lengthy torture scenes reminded me of Ichi the Killer (2001). In fact, it would've been an even more gory nerve wracking film if it wasn't for the camera angle censoring out the torture.Matsuyuki Yasuko (beautiful as ever) also delivers a strong performance, though Tsumabuki Satoshi as the protagonist was quite a miscast as he never seemed convincing in his role. Mitsushima Hikari who was decent in Shion Sono's "Love Exposure" (2008) was comically bad, almost reading the script the whole time.Despite the shortcomings by part of the cast, "Smuggler" is an entertaining dark comedy / action as long as you don't think too much and just enjoy the ride. And of course, don't forget to have the "teehee, his face got smacked by nunchucks" type of mindset when watching this film.