Branded to Kill is a 1967 Japanese yakuza film directed by Seijun
Suzuki and starring Joe Shishido, Koji Nanbara, Annu Mari and Mariko
Ogawa. It was a low budget, production line number for the Nikkatsu
Company. The story follows Goro Hanada in his life as a contract
killer. He falls in love with a woman named Misako, who recruits him
for a seemingly impossible mission. When the mission fails he becomes
hunted by the phantom Number One Killer, whose methods threaten his
sanity as much as his life. After its release Suzuki was famously
fired for making "movies that make no sense and no money". Suzuki was
blacklisted and did not make another feature for 10 years but became a
counterculture hero. The film drew a strong following which expanded
overseas through the 1980s and 1990s and has established itself as a
cult classic. Film critics and enthusiasts now regard it as an
absurdist masterpiece. It has been cited as an influence by filmmakers
such as Jim Jarmusch, John Woo, Chan-wook Park and Quentin Tarantino.
Thirty-four years after Branded to Kill, Suzuki filmed Pistol Opera
(2001) with Nikkatsu, a loose sequel to the former.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branded_to_Kill
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1854:
At least 22 people were killed and 35 others were injured when
rebelling miners at the Eureka Stockade clashed violently with the
police and the military in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Stockade)
1904:
The Jovian moon Himalia was discovered by astronomer Charles Dillon
Perrine at the Lick Observatory in San Jose, California, USA.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalia_%28moon%29)
1967:
At Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, cardiac
surgeon Christiaan Barnard performed the first successful human heart
transplant on Louis Washkansky.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiaan_Barnard)
1971:
The formal initiation of hostilities of the Indo-Pakistani War began
with Pakistan launching airstrikes on Indian airfields, and India
retaliating by invading East Pakistan.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chengiz_Khan)
1999:
NASA lost contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before it
reached the atmosphere of Mars and disappeared.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Polar_Lander)
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Wiktionary's Word of the day:
effectually: In such a way as to achieve a desired result;
effectively.
(
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/effectually)
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Wikiquote of the day:
All creative art is magic, is evocation of the unseen in forms
persuasive, enlightening, familiar and surprising, for the edification
of mankind, pinned down by the conditions of its existence to the
earnest consideration of the most insignificant tides of reality. --
Joseph Conrad
(
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Conrad)