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‘Kamikaze Taxi’ is a Japanese Yakusa film with a social conscience. Tatsuo has a promising future in the Yakusa but when his girl-friend is killed after a prostitute she arranged for a high ranking politician is brutally attacked, Tatsuo (Kazuya Takahashi) jeopardises everything to seek revenge. He steals $2 million from the politician and soon the Yakusa and the politician’s henchmen are after his blood. When he hires a taxi to escape, Kantake (Koji Yakusho), a Japanese-Peruvian immigrant, becomes his accomplice as they battle to outwit their pursuers. Writer/director Masato Harada has created an explosive and exciting film which comments on the Japanese traditions of honourable suicide typified by the World War 2 kamikaze pilots, as well as the current state of Japanese society and politics. The film is set in 1994 when Japan was thrown into chaos after Prime Minister Husokawa resigned after corruption scandals. Koji Yakusho is magnetic as the quiet but powerful Kantake and Kazuya Takahashi successfully embodies the restlessness of the youth of Japan. In Japanese with English subtitles.
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How to watch
Collection
In ACMI's collection
Credits
Collection metadata
ACMI Identifier
309074
Language
Japanese
Audience classification
M (15+)
Subject categories
Action & Adventure → Action films
Advertising, Film, Journalism, Mass Media & TV → Foreign language films
Crime, Espionage, Justice, Police & Prisons → Yakuza-eiga
Sound/audio
Sound
Colour
Colour
Holdings
VHS; Access Print (Section 1)