Sailor Suit and Machine Gun

When their boss dies, a small yakuza gang bizarrely decides to make his teenage daughter the new boss, and they get into a series of scrapes surrounding a missing heroin shipment. Ostensibly a comedy, it's actually quite dark with the funny bits few and far between (though perhaps the intended satire was too subtle for this gaijin), but it's a pretty good story and the girl is just cute enough and weird enough to hold your interest.

Feels like it should have been a prime candidate for Disneyfied 90s remake -- if you can buy the bizarre premise of a teenager 'inheriting' her father's status as head of a Yakuza clan, it's an engaging, enjoyable ride (if a bit sluggish at times) with Yakushimaru's bright, charismatic performance almost managing to bridge the credibility gap. Occasionally uncertain in its tone, veering between sanitised family comedy and comparably quite brutal (and sexually explicit) material.

With all of its cultural significance and iconic lead, you would think it'd be a better film, but it's actually frustrating in how bad it is. The directing is real bad (long unbroken shots for most scenes and... what's a close up?), the pacing is ultra slow, and even the editing is poor. It has a few funny moments, but mostly it is boring. And it gets real weird for 25 minutes before getting back to normal. There's a tv series of this too, and maybe it's better.