Yakuza, Irezumi, Gangsta love and the Gorillaz- THE OUTSIDER (2018)

The Outsider(2018)

Personal Rating: 7/10 IMDb Rating: 6.3/10 Tomatometer: 17% Audiences: 68%

Director: Martin Zandvliet Writer: Andrew Baldwin Stars: Jared Leto, Tadanobu Asano, Kippei Shîna

To me, Jared Leto always was a mystery. With that serious face, his movies always provided me with food for thoughts. Whatever the character he played, it had always an unreachable deep depth like the well in “The Ring”. While writing this I am listening to “Gorillaz” and it reminded me of Paul Allen from the American Psycho.

In recent years, Netflix has changed the entertainment experience for either better or worse. However, the entertained might perceive it. But the movie releases which are solely produced by Netflix have somewhat ruined the movie experience all together for me. The release all had at least one thing as a reason. And for The Outsider (2018), it was the ending. But I’d suggest you, the reader to watch it. Here’s to why-

If you search online, this movie has been slammed by the critics as emotionless, underwhelming and all the other things. But it’s what it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to be emotionless. An American caught up with reality in a different culture is supposed to show emotion how? In an American way or The Japanese way?

It’s the year 1954. In a Japanese prison, the only American prisoner is Nick Lowell (Jared Leto). So he stands out bad. One day while he was sweeping as it was his assigned task, he hears some rumbling in another room. As even the prison of Japan has paper interior designs. So he goes to investigate and finds Kyoshi (Tandanobu Sato) is being hanged to die by some rival yakuza inmates. In that era, most of the criminals in almost any Japanese prison were either yakuza members or thieves. So it was bound that the gangs had strong hierarchy also inside the prison. So such a rival gang hanged Kyoshi.

Nick and the Shiromatsu Gang

Nick saves him from imminent death. And so, the Shiromatshu gang, Kyoshi is a member, repays the debt of saving his life by arranging for his release from prison.

As they both get out, he is also offered a job in the yakuza. Very soon he starts climbing through the chain of command as he in his previous life before going to prison was a soldier. And the events start rolling on from there.

Interestingly enough, I had little knowledge about the yakuza before watching this film. The yakuza are like Chinese Triads or the Russian Bratva in their essence that much I knew. All of them are family-run gangs and so are the yakuza. The interesting thing is any and each member of these criminal gangs cover their whole body with Irezumi. The Japanese name for tattoos. Every gang carries their own insignia and most noticeably these are done by hand with wooden tools as an initiation process. The more tattoos mean the level of veteran one is. Making them sexier, appealing and cruel.

Now to get back to the movie, It was a pleasant experience with nothing at the end. Kind of trying to teach you things with no specific goals at the end. The universe building was like any other mafia movie. It’s not in the list of greats but it’s there somewhere.

The director did a wonderful job of holding the pace perfectly but it was so very slow. More could’ve been pushed in the story if they were sure about the time. The background story somehow reminded me of the Grave of The Fireflies. Japanese culture and their peaceful nature have always drawn me towards them and the director succeeded at that. Even after being so slow of a movie he had my attention all along.

At a point, Nick falls in love with Miyu (Shiori Kutsuna), the sister of Kysohi this notion of inter race love was one of the most interesting things about this film. And this love drags the whole Shiromatsu clan with them as the ex of Miyu wanted revenge.

Jared Leto as Nick

Not every movie has to be always over the top. The Outsider is a peaceful joyride. I could’ve pointed out more things about it to motivate the reader, you more, but to avoid spoilers that is as much as I will write. But if you are that person who’s always in with a penny, out with a dime, this is not for you. But do watch it.

That was it for me. If you liked this post please upvote and comments. Any feedback is much appreciated. As always, Thank you for reading.