Blues Harp

Kenji is a young yakuza with ambitions. Chuji works behind a bar, plays harmonica, and deals on the side for the rival gang. The two meet and something forms between them that is part closeness and part threat. Kenji's calculations inside the organisation, and his men's growing jealousy of Chuji, slowly rot the whole thing through. This comes from Takashi Miike's most prolific period in the nineties. He uses the yakuza shape but puts belonging and exclusion at the centre of it, and the music is not decoration here, it is the only way anyone gets to breathe. It is generally counted among his most restrained films, and nothing about the ending is softened.