Yeah, this was definitely an interesting film. If I have to explain how the film works and what the main focus is of the film, then I would give some sort of a comparison to help things. In Christopher Nolan's *Inception* by the end there is a concern about escape of the main characters, but mainly the escape of Cobb. In that film, Cobb is the centre force of all things. He is the one leading the charge, any troubles that comes, comes from his own personal past, present, and what may lie for him in the future, what he dreams about, what he longs for, what he lost, and what he regrets. In Dunkirk on the other hand, the entire film is about the concerns of the escape of the soldiers, but there is technically no central soldier you care about, so it has a more feeling of inviting you to explore the event what a collective faced instead of a collective anchored by a single character whose emotional resonance affects others and his own life. Similarly, to how Inception at the end of the day is about a singular human who forms a collective while Dunkirk is about the observation of a collective group of characters itself, I have similar analysis of the differences between Sonatine and Outrage. Sonatine is also about a Yakuza gang, but in that film, Kitano's character is the central focus, and how his desensitization to violence and unpredicatability gives us a plot which while starts with a collective of people (in that film's case, a Yakuza gang in hiding) eventually culminated into the character study of a singular man who has been exposed to violence so much that he doesn't flinch, feel, or enjoy anything about it. In that regards, my comparison might seem fraut and kind of pretentious (and maybe it is), but in that structure of storytelling sense, and I only structure of storytelling sense, it is a convergence from a collective to a singular just like Inception. So similarly, Outrage feels closer to Dunkirk, where instead of you eventually following a single character, the entire gang and its activities and infightings, and backstabbings, are a character themselves. If Inception and Sonatine are more closer to reading a novel, Dunkirk and Outrage are closer to reading a headline in a newspaper. Where instead of emotionally attaching yourself to one anchor, you are observing the incidents of a collective, and have no attachment to any one character, but are still fascinated by the incidents themselves. Like here, in this film, basically what you are witnessing is an entire Yakuza gang eating itself up. Where hunger for power within leads to everyone killing everyone, and after a while it feels almost ridiculous on how usually Yakuzas advertises themselves as some sort of modern noble samurai, and base their entire system after it, but at the smallest of *Outrage* whether it be the smallest insult or a smallest misunderstanding, they will kill their own sworn fathers and brothers. There is no loyalty and those metaphorical classic gestures of cutting finger off to show regret means nothing, because in reality these are just violent men seeking the smallest excuse for violence. In that regards, I found this film uniquely fascinating. As if, how to say, I am watching a human equivalent of an animal documentary. Where we are less attaching ourselves to one animal, and instead scientifically analyzing their behavior and violence. I hope I am making sense and not coming off as pretentious ass, but yeah, this was definitely a unique experience in comparison to other Kitano films, though the film feels very one and done by the end, so I am confused how did Kitano managed to convert it into an entire trilogy. Though there were some open threads with the black ambassador, the bandaged man, and Kitano's character himself, so maybe the sequels cover from there.
