Any film with the title mentioned above is bound to absolutely ludricous. And Kihachi Okamoto's 'The Age of Assassins' (AKA The Epoch of Murder Madness, AKA Killers' Age) doesn't disappoint in the slightest.
The film follows Shinji Kikyo (Tatsuya Nakadai), a humble criminal psychology teacher who has in his posession a large diamond originally stolen by the Nazis. Mizorogi (Eisei Amamoto), an ex-Nazi mad scientist who trains assassins in his lunatic asylum, finds out about the diamond and sends his men to hunt down Shinji so he can have the diamond all for himself. Yet Shinji proves to be more than able to defend himself against these professional killers, leading Mizorogi to believe that Shinji is not just a humble teacher after all...
I'll say now that trying to write a short synopsis for this film that doesn't sound ridiculous is probably impossible. A spy movie spoof complete with extraordinary gadgets, femme fatales (namely Reiko Dan, pictured above) and supervillains, Okamoto's film relishes in presenting us with extreme possibilities in everyone of these aspects, generating the darkly comic tone of the film. Nakadai's nerdy, aloof, and deadpan teacher works brilliantly in contrast to all the bizarre assassination attempts he and his goofy friend Automo Bill (Hideo Sunazuka) find themselves in. Scenes, such as their escape from an artillery target site during a shooting practice, blend together clever parody and pure slapstick in ways that only Okamoto could achieve.
Okamoto's use of high contrast in the black & white photography of the film also lends it a noirish look, producing some stunning images, my favourite being from a scene towards the end of the film where Shinji, by now having come out of his Maths teacher cocoon to reveal himself to be a superspy, is walking away in longshot from a car in his James Bond style suit while a shower of fireworks bursts up into the air from behind. Simply gorgeous.
And so ends the São Paulo International Film Festival for another year. I didn't end up seeing nearly as many films as I would've hoped, and I also managed to miss pretty much all of the debates and presentations of the specially invited guests, including a two-hour conversation with Wim Wenders revealing all about his methods of filming and writing (you just know that would've been incredible). I think next festival I go to, I'll just live in the cinemas for about two weeks, surviving on a diet of popcorn and coke. I'm sure it'd be fine.
