MovieChat Forums > Giri/Haji (2020) Discussion > Dissapointing. A Lifeless Bore

Dissapointing. A Lifeless Bore

posted 4 years ago by Threadkiller (2947)
13 replies | jump to latest

I wanted to give it a chance because I like Kelly Macdonald & enjoy some Yakuza crime films but I pretty much gave up 4 episodes in. A dreary paper thin story that tries to pretend it's more than it is, awkwardly padded with completely pointless filler lbgt characters & storylines .The flaming male prostitute in particular who is constantly around for no discernable reason that serves the plot other than to be flaming non stop & to indoctrinate the protagonist's daughter into another pointless lbgt filler side plot.

The male protagonist is fairly lifeless and mostly sleepwalks through his scenes. I don't have anything bad to say about Kelly Macdonald's performance. She makes the best of what she is given, which is to say very little.

You won't be missing much by passing on this .

[–] Geff (453) 4 years ago

I typically like Kelly Macdonald, but I thought she was terrible in this show because the role does not fit her. Infact the character itself is very poorly written, a slutty/dumb basic bitch who just happens to be a police detective.

In spite of this, I liked the show very much. I personally like slow nihilistic tones in films and this is actually characteristic in old fashioned Japanese filmography. The recent film Earthquake Bird follows the same tone.

The lgbt politics while I admit out of place was not overbearing enough to be distracting. i think it's supposed to be there to demonstrate the antithesis of the traditional heroic and masculine samurai or yakuza archetypes. It's interesting to think about momentarily.

To be honest I hated the basic bitch Sarah more than the lgbt characters. The romantic sub plot between Kenzo and Sarah felt very forced. I couldn't stand Sarah's character. Kenzo's wife, Rei, seems much better suited to Kenzo's character, which is ironic because the show poses the opposite thesis. I think the source of your boredom was all the scenes between Sarah and Kenzo, these scenes put me to sleep too if I wasn't too busy cringing at the melodrama.

The rescue adventure between Kenzo's mother, wife and Yuto's girlfriend was genuinely entertaining throughout. I loved every moment Kenzo's mother was on screen.

Imo eventhough Kenzo was on screen most of the time, this show is mainly about Yuto's character arc. The actor who played him really played him excellently.

[–] Threadkiller (2947) 4 years ago

Are you sure you're talking about Macdonald's character & not the degenerate druggie male prostitute that all the characters inexplicably love having around for no reason? In all seriousness her character certainly had issues but at least never felt hamfisted (no pun intended) and pointless in the way the former did.

[–] Geff (453) 4 years ago

Again, I should make clear that it is not the actor who irked me, it was her terrible writing. When she confronts the prostitute's assailant, that dialogue made me cringe so hard that my face went into outer face. All of her dialogue with her old boyfriend was similarly cringeworthy.

This character was very poorly written and out of place. Her relationship with Kenzo seemed absolutely unbelievable. Given Kenzo and Rei's charcter types, the somber silent type as you say, the two of them were made for eachother. Sarah doesn't fit in here.

As for the druggie degenerate prostitute, he is intentionally written to be childish and with developmental problems as a result of his growing up with crazy single mother. The only one who loves having him around is Taki, who is young and therefore mentally of the same age as him. The others tolerate him and are paternalistic towards him out of pity, they naturally fit in to replace the absent father figure.

[–] Threadkiller (2947) 4 years ago

Whatever the legit faults of Macdonald's character at least her existence made sense to me in the context of the narrative & the poorness in writing paled in comparison to the male prostitute degenerate character who did not need to exist at all, whose entire presence & involvement with the other main characters (This terrible & pointless nothing character gets significant focus throughout ) simply bogs down the flow of the narrative.

The main character's daughter simply may be the most jarring case. She literally decides to go traipsing around the city in a foreign land with a weirdo stranger literally 30 seconds after meeting him. That's terrible writing. So while the worst example It's definitely not just her who immediately takes an inexplicable interest & involvement with the character for no discernable reason other than the lazy writing demanding it. Character 1. Sure come stay with in my cramped room, weirdo druggie man whore who i have no further use for. Character 2. Hey weirdo druggie man whore i just met, I think i'll go abuse my position as a police officer to threaten one of your fellow degenerate cohorts on your behalf & invite you to my house for dinner.

I had to constantly wonder why the main characters without hesitation or explanation would keep inexplicably doing things to accommodate this random degenerate weirdo who they just met that any normal person would want to avoid.

It's one thing to have superfluous, tacked on characters but the nonsensical writing to accommodate this one is something else.

[–] Geff (453) 4 years ago

Maybe you have memory problems. Kenzo did not associate with Rodney because he "inexplicably liked him". Kenzo associated with him initially for pragmatic reasons. Rodney was the only one who spoke Japanese and Kenzo thought Rodney could get him into the Japanese club.

After having realized that the club was open to all, he broke his promise to Rodney which led to Rodney being beat up. Kenzo was partially responsible for Rodney being beat up. Themes of Duty and Shame are recurring themes. Kenzo, having made the promise, had a duty, but he ultimately rejected his duty and as a result felt shame. Note he did not feel shame initially. Even when he was at the hospital he was asking if anyone else couldn't take care of Rodney. After seeing the state of Rodney the shame and paternalistic instinct kicked in.

As I mentioned already, Rodney is meant to be the anti-hero. Rodney and young irresponsible Yuto are meant to be mirror images. Both develop as characters in different ways. Yuto achieves redemption in his own way and takes responsibility while Rodney's shame compounds and near the end, upon encountering his mother and her words, Rodney finally realizes that happiness and shallow pleasure seeking isn't all there is to life. He was living for his immature mother all along and was not taking responsibility for his own life. But, at the same time it's difficult to confront someone who is so immature so he just learns to accept.

[–] Threadkiller (2947) 4 years ago

No need to get weirdly defensive and condescending all of a sudden. My memory is just fine. I'm well aware that he "initially" needed the prostitute druggie, or at least he though he did about getting access to a club, which later turned out to be largely unnecessary as the prostitute was being misleading about it. His first reaction before doing a 180 was to cut ties with this unreliable druggie prostitute as any rational person should who wasn't being forthright with him in their agreement so it was the prostitute who broke the agreement. Beyond that he had zero reason to continue associating with this person but continues to do so for no other reason than the plot decides to make him feel irrationally obligated.

I don't buy the idea of Kenzo having a "duty" to a shifty, unreliable degenerate who he just met and who merely got what was coming to him through no one's fault but his own, especially considering the live and death priorities he should be concerning himself with.

The prostitute druggie was a useless and insufferable character who did not need to exist & I definitely don't buy the "low life degenerate with a secret heart of gold" concept. The series could have been a lot tighter and focused without that filler garbage that makes it a chore to watch.

[–] Geff (453) 4 years ago

Nobody has a "heart of gold" Rodney has as much of a "heart of gold" as his mirror image, Yuto, which is to say that neither has a heart of gold. Infact I reject the notion of the existence of an enigmatic heart of gold, it's a fiction.

You say "irrationally obligated" because you don't understand Japanese culture. Japanese culture is itself a character in this show. The two main Yakuza leaders talk at length about Japanese culture, while themselves violating many of the rules of traditional Japanese culture. Their adherence to a culture is largely surface level and aesthetic. Kenzo's adherence to the Japanese morality is the most strong, whereas Yuto wanted to adhere before realizing the corruption of the main Yakuza leaders and adopting a more selfish and self-serving, but still "good" morality.

It is also your lack of undertsnding of Japanese culture that prompts you to to call Kenzo a lifeless sleepwalker. Lucy Fly from Earthquake Bird is also a lifeless sleepwalker, there is a reason for this. Reservation and stocism are baked into the cake. This is also why Sarah, an extremely un-Japanese character whose personality is heavily contrasted with Rei and Kenzo's personalities, is not a good match for Kenzo.

[–] Threadkiller (2947) 4 years ago

I totally disagree withe the idea of the protagonist's daughter being a mirror reflection of the degenerate prostitute character. They really couldn't have been more dissimilar apart from the whole indoctrinating her into his underground lbgt party scene.

Seems like a copout explaining it away as "Japanese culture" how the protagonist (and other non Japanese characters btw) inexplicably indulgence an inconsequential degenerate low life stranger who in real life, sensible people would want as little to do with as possible. Only fantasy TV land. I don't buy It & it completely took me out of every scene.

[–] Geff (453) 4 years ago

Yuto is Kenzo's brother. The name of his daughter is Taki...

I recommend watching Earthquake Bird, a film that came out last month on Netflix. Some of the themes, especially in regards to Japanese stoicism are shared between the film and this show. The Ousider (2018) is another good pairing which i would recommend.

[–] Threadkiller (2947) 4 years ago

I don"t at all see the protagonist's brother as any sort of mirror image either. One is a misguided man who falls in over his head with the criminal underworld and through circumstance becomes the center of a gang war which pushes the entire plot. On the other hand you have an insignificant degenerate bottom feeder(no pun intended) of a character whose constant presence feels extremely forced & drags the plot rather than help push it along.

I'm familiar with the stoic archetype in Japanese cinema. I don't think it was done all that well here but that's not the major problem with this show anyway. I saw the Outsider with Jared Leto which I was relatively excited about going in because I respect Leto's acting & have enjoyed many of Asano's performances only to be a bit disappointed by a somewhat cliche plot of a white guy becoming "a member the tribe" of a foreign culture & which of course includes an "exotic" romance with one of the important & attractive females. I also felt Leto phoned it in a little bit. I haven't watched Earthquake Bird as it doesn't really seem like my cup of tea.

[–] 1Ubermensch (14) 4 years ago

++++++++++++++++

[–] [email protected] (1600) 4 years ago

Not many characters to like here esp that male prostitute who is there to just eff everyone's life.

Why does the father allow his 16 year old naive impressionable daughter to hang around this dirty mouthed scumbag? Who is clearly a bad influence and now she's sleeping with some 30 something year old lesbian who looks older than the uncle even and slept with her Bec of some Japanese fetish thing she had.

Sarah the hypocrite who imprisons her cop bf for cheating on her and planting evidence on a gangster yet hides a notorious Yakuza in her home and has an affair with a married crooked cop. The ex boyfriend with all his flaws and crookedness was a much better person than she was or is. And why sleep with him only to turn him in the next morning? He at least had the decency to warn her.

And this daughter running away and going to bars, sleeping around when her uncle is in hiding, they're being hunted down, the grandfather is dying, etc yet she's out there to have fun period. No sense of priorities whatsoever and getting on that rooftop? Wtf?

Finally the cop who cheats on his wife while his wife takes care of his dying father, his aged mother who clearly doesn't like her and is hard to live with, and helps hatch an escape plan for the gf and baby of his brother. Boy, you can't blame the wife for his cheating like many would do in this instance because she is doing all that he should be doing himself yet she shoulders his family's burden, only for him to cheat on her with some woman who is a traitor and a hypocrite.

The only likable person is REI the wife.

[–] CheekyMonkey (584) 3 years ago

The characters all seem like cautionary tales, rather than there to be liked... Nearly all self centred and deracinated... All have modern/contemporary sensibilities, apart from the Yakuza who have an order moral code, even if they are criminals.

The thing is, apart from the Kenzo/Yuto redemption/atonement storyline the entire series is a celebration of moral weakness, cowardice and lack of discipline and loyalty, especially within families. It's not surprising many of the characters are gay.

My only question is, was this made as a cautionary tale, or are people unaware of the obvious connections between home and society? It seems like this series is unaware of this, even though it is staring us in the face...