Agitator (2001)

The Agitator is a complex crime drama, with a lot of people and a lot of subplots. To summarize, there are two rival yakuza gangs, the Shirane, and the Yokomizu. When a Yokomizu gangster causes a scene in a Shirane nightclub, vengeance escalates into murder then breaks out into gang war. The leaders of the gangs make a plan to end the fighting quickly, but a rouge faction, the Higuchi gang, threatens to take them both down.

Director: Takashi Miike
Starring: Masaya Kato, Naoto Takenaka, Masato Ibu

©2001"Agitator"Film Partners

Review:
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The Agitator is heavy on the politics and intrigue between the gangs. Most of the film is spent in meetings, with the gangsters laying out plans for power and then revising them as the Higuchi scatter the pieces to the wind. It’s a thinking gangster’s film.

This doesn’t mean that the movie is lacking in the gory shoot-outs you’d expect from a gangster drama. When they finally decide who they’re killing, the gangsters make good on that promise. As the story moves toward its climax, the violence picks up, and there’s a lot of action (and blood) in the final third.

-Rebecca
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