In his essay on the “Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell, Bastards!” film scholar Jasper Sharp defines 1963, the year of the film's release, as a “high watermark” for Japanese director Seijun Suzuki. Having worked at Nikkatsu for many years now, Suzuki had gained a reputation as one of the most productive directors of the studio, even though – as “Detective Bureau 2-3…” also shows – he also showed the first signs of dissatisfaction with the kind of material he was given. Ultimately, these feelings along with his approach to the kind of projects he was assigned to led to “Branded to Kill” and him being fired from the studio.
Unsurprisingly, the story of “Detective Bureau 2-3…” is a good example of the kind of material Seijun Suzuki had to deal with at his time at Nikkatsu. Iwao Yamazaki's and Haruhiko Oyabu's script offers a blend of cop drama and hard-boiled gangster flick, a story which offered the right amount of action and entertainment the studio had been producing for quite some time. Nevertheless, Suzuki's take on the story turns out to be quite different resulting in a film which seems to be quite aware of its roots, and one which often playfully disrupts the audience's expectations.
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After a shooting between rival gangsters, the Japanese police suspect a new player in town trying to gain control. Since a shipment of guns has disappeared, Inspector Kumagai (Nobuo Kaneko) and his men attempt to receive some answers from one of the survivors of the terrifying shootout, a man named Manabe (Tamio Kawaji). However, since their interrogations remain unsuccessful and time is running out, Kumagai knows he has to let his key witness go into the arms of the rows of gangsters just waiting outside police headquarters planning to kill Manabe on sight. This dilemma proves to be exactly the kind of opportunity Hideo Tajima (Jo Shishido) has been waiting for. As a civilian allowed to carry a gun, he has been running a detective agency for quite some time and offers his services to Kumagai, a plan to make sure the witness stays alive but also to find the men behind the shooting and the missing guns.
In the beginning of the film, the sequence of the shooting already represents the canvas Suzuki paints on. Its imagery of chaos, the repeated sound of gunshots, the shouting and the screeching wheels of cars or trucks on the road show the complete cacophony of the urban setting of the film. More than once the movie confronts its viewer with images of sheer chaos, of disintegration or an overwhelming amount of sensory impressions, at times from various sources seemingly contrasting each other. As the opening credits appear with the image of the burning vehicle, Harumi Ibe's upbeat score marks an interesting antithesis to the visuals. On another layer, the frequent use of drums is reminiscent of jazz, a kind of music defined by improvisations, impressions which might not fit together, and the rest of the musicians have to find their harmony again, sometimes by diving right into the midst of the creative chaos.
Considering this approach, casting Jo Shishido as the leading man is perhaps the most important asset of the film. His performance, similar to many other collaborations with the director, such as “Youth of the Beast” or “Branded to Kill”, emphasizes the chaotic nature of the story, or rather embraces it. Even Sharp comments on the tongue-in-cheek nature of how Shishido delivers his lines, embraces the curve balls thrown at him from the fight scenes to musical numbers. There seems to be nothing this character does not expect or find his way out of, like a Japanese version of characters like James Bond or Ethan Hunt. He is the perfect fit to the kind of chaos which is at the core of the world Suzuki shows, one which has also infected the fabric of the film itself.
In the end, “Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell, Bastards!” is quite an entertaining mixture of comedy, gangster film and cop drama. Within the context of Suzuki's body of work, you may regard it as a precursor to future films such as the one mentioned above, one which shows how the director could already go beyond borders such as genre or story and become a unique artist. Additionally, the edition released by Arrow Video offers interesting background material to further show the relevance of the film for its director, its cast as well as for the time it was released.