My first encounter with Fukasaki was a rather tense one. The film was Battles Without Honor or Humanity, and all of my attempts to keep up with the plot and characters were more or less futile. At one point during the movie I decided "screw it", and tried to watch five minutes of a less confusing film before being sucked back in to his world of gangland murders, super close-ups, and missing fingers. Street Mobster would probably have been a better introduction to the work of this most singular of filmmakers. With a more streamlined narrative, and less of a focus on yakuza politics, Fukasaki delivers pure balls-to-the-wall bombastic action. Isamu Okita, played by Fukasaki regular Bunta Sugawara, is a small-time loose-cannon punk whose antics land him in hot water with Japan's largest crime syndicates. What elevates Street Mobster from simple genre flick to pop art is the sheer energy with which it unfolds. The handheld camera never stops moving, limbs and body parts are splayed across the screen, the fights are below the belt, and it is through and through loud, rude, crude, and offensive. In terms of sheer absurdity and lunacy, only Suzuki matches up, though Fukasaki's style is less surreal and more down 'n' dirty with slapdash melodrama, kind of like backyard wrestling. But there is also heart and soul on display here, and a very genuine emotional impact. This is ultimately about a man struggling to fit in with a world that has drastically changed, a man who does not know how to quit, a man whose full-throttle passion kills him in the end. And there are the side characters he encounters along the way, who drift in and out of the narrative like floatsam, lending the film a rather true-to-life quality. Remove the crime elements, and we are left with the eternal human struggle.
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