Why would you even try to tell a story amidst this ridiculousness? It's not needed. This is Suzuki hitting the top of the crazy meter, and [unlike Branded to Kill] I don't really like it.

Fighting Elegy is a film about fighting. The main character is Kiroku Nanbu. He's supposedly a high-schooler, although he looks like he's 30, and he uses fighting as a substitute for communication. And as a substitute for masturbation. He just really loves fighting. Anyone. Anytime. He's in love with a girl named Michiko, but not as much as he's in love with punching and kicking people. Did I mention he's catholic? I'm making it sound sillier than it is; this film is actually quite powerful.

Some of the stuff in here is really beautiful and some of it is really nuts, and all of it is captivating.

My second Seijun Suzuki film. While much less contained than Branded to Kill, Fighting Elegy also has a lot more potency, packing mixed messages on machoism, masculinity, rebellion, and imperialism that I'm still trying to unravel. Again, pretty interesting camera work for the day in a couple scenes. I wish this delved deeper into Kiroku and Michiko to get a little more rhyme and reason behind their actions. Though, given the themes of the film, that might ruin everything.

Its earlier scenes act as a strange and inspired combination of Catholic guilt, love story, and borderline slapstick fight scenes. If it sounds weird that's because it is, and the bold style of the thing makes it even weirder and even more enjoyable. It started to lose my interest a bit in the second half when the Catholic guilt and love story aspects seem to almost disappear until the closing couple minutes, and the satire doesn't make complete sense to me, but it was still great fun.

Boring, but in the end we realize that the film is really very beautiful. Suzuki deserves respect.