Over the years, gangster films have found no shortage of viciously clever ways to inflict maximum punishment on those who wind up on the wrong side of the wrong person. But leave it to Japanese master Takeshi Kitano to discover yet another entertainingly gruesome method with which to dispatch someone who has unfortunately found himself on the wrong end of things.
Following 2010’s “Outrage,” Kitano has returned with the sequel “Beyond Outrage,” writing, directing and starring in the effort. The latest finds the Sanno and Hanabishi crime families manipulated into a gang war by police detective Kataoka, and in the middle of it all is Otomo (Kitano), who is trying to get out of the game. But as you’ll see here, he hasn’t lost an ounce of his manner in deadly dealings, with one man strapped to a chair and staring down a baseball aimed directly at this head. We’ll never look at batting cages the same way again.
As our own Gabe Toro wrote, the film “takes the standard gangster movie template and blasts it out of the water.” “Beyond Outrage” is now available through iTunes or On Demand and opens in limited release on January 3rd.