About 
Jade, starring martial artist and stunt performer Shaina West in her first starring role with Mickey Rourke, is out on VOD on February 18th
Posted in: Amazon, Movies, Streaming | Tagged: Broken Rage, hitman comedy, Japanese cinema, Prime, streaming, takeshi kitano
Broken Rage: Takeshi Kitano's New Hitman Comedy Comes to Prime in Feb
Broken Rage, Takeshi Kitano's goofball spoof of his own brutal yakuza crime movies, is streaming worldwide on Prime starting on February 14th
Article Summary
- Broken Rage brings Takeshi Kitano's comedic twist to yakuza films, streaming on Prime Feb 13.
- This hitman comedy evolves from gritty crime-action to a self-parodying slapstick spoof.
- Kitano's film spoofs his Outrage trilogy, mocking grim gangsters with hilarious antics.
- Explore the dual sides of Kitano, blending serious filmmaking with snarky comedy.
Prime Streaming is releasing Japanese actor-director Takeshi Kitano's latest htiman crime comedy Broken Rage worldwide on February 13th. This is good news for fans of Japanese cinema and Kitano's films, whose distribution in the West has been spotty at best in the last few years. His previous movie, Kubi, is a subversive samurai saga that exposes the homoerotic tensions between swordsmen, but it is still without a US distributor.
Broken Rage follows a hitman, Nezumi (played by Kitano), fighting for his survival when he's caught between the police and yakuza. But in the second half, the gritty crime-action thriller takes an unexpected turn, evolving into a self-parodying comedy that retells the same story with a captivatingly humorous touch.
What the official synopsis doesn't tell you is that Broken Rage is Kitano's spoof of his own straightedged and frequently brutal crime films, particularly the brutal Outrage trilogy Outrage (2010), Outrage Beyond (2017), and Outrage Coda (2017), which were said to be inspired by past true stories of Yakuza turf wars. Broken Rage, even from the trailer, looks like Kitano taking the piss out of the grim stoicism of movie gangsters and hitmen by spoofing the hitmen he has played by playing a hitman who's a complete goofball in Naked Gun-style slapstick shenanigans.
Broken Rage Highlights Both Sides of Takeshi Kitano's Sensibilities
Many Westerners were introduced to Kitano via the films he wrote and starred in, starting with Violent Cop, Boiling Point, and Sonatine in the 1990s, and saw the full bloom of his directorial voice with Hanabi. His Western fans weren't always aware that his career began in standup comedy before he became a TV comedian on a Benny Hill-style sketch show and a game show host. Japan was slower to see him as a serious filmmaker because they considered him that funny guy on TV for a long time, even when his films were getting attention and winning awards in the international film festival, and Western arthouse circuit put him on the global map. Some of his more recent films have not gotten distribution in the US or UK and they seem to be the ones that are on the more goofy, comedic end of his spectrum. Broken Rage marries both sides of his range and interests as a filmmaker: the serious filmmaker and the snarky comedy goofball.
Broken Rage premieres on Prime on February 13th. The streamer has a large catalogue of recent Japanese films and TV series, many of which are very good but not well-known in the West.
Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!
Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!
