23) Non-Stop (1996), 25) Postman Blues (1997), 26) Monday (2000) and 27) Drive (2002)

23) Non-Stop (1996) Dir: Sabu Date Released: November 2000 Date Seen: January 26, 2011 Rating: 3/5

25) Postman Blues (1997) Dir: Sabu Not Yet Released Date Seen: January 26, 2011 Rating: 3.25/5

26) Monday (2000) Dir: Sabu Not Yet Released Date Seen: January 30, 2011 Rating: 3.5/5

27) Drive (2002) Dir: Sabu Not Yet Released Date Seen: January 31, 2011 Rating: 3/5

I was planning on writing a lengthy piece on Sabu's blue-collar heroes and how his films' frantically kinetic pacing resembles Tony Scott's recent films (he even directed a short film that's directly inspired by Scott's The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 remake). But then I stopped writing for the New York Press. 

So that piece never happened and maybe never will happen. 

Still, with the exception of Drive, there's an image in each one of these films that encapsulated the film's mood or complicated it in ways that excited me in some way. In Monday, it's the elevator scene; in Postman Blues, it's the road-side denouement; in Non-Stop, it's the scene where the third man joins the chase. With Drive, Sabu rehashes a lot of familiar material but the film's amiable enough and features a slightly more refined meltdown-induced melodrama. All four films are exciting to varying to degrees. I may yet revisit these and write the piece I had wanted to. But for the moment, these singular images remain at the back of my mind.

301) Kanikosen (2009)

301) Kanikosen (2009) Dir: Hiroyuki Tanaka (aka: Sabu) Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 18, 2009 Rating: 2.75/5

Based on a novel from the '30s by the same name, Hiroyuki Tanaka's adaptation of Takiji Kobayashi's Kanikosen feels like an adaptation that adapts its sources material too literally. Everything, from its fleeting traces of absurdist black humor to its grandstanding speeches about how we're all just cogs in the machine, appears much too obvious to be original. The only significant additions that Tanaka looks to have made in his dismally straight-forward and earnest adaptation is his attempt to connect with a younger audience. The film's "manga-flavored" aesthetic is best evinced by the film's costumes, especially for the film's big baddie (above, on the left), a scarred foreman that struts around in a beige pormanteau brandishing a pimp cane like a cudgel. 

The other more obvious sign that the film is targeted for 20-30 year olds is its choice to cast pretty boy pop star Ryuhei Matsuda (on the right) as the rabble-rouser that leads a group of workers on a crab-canning ship to revolt. This is cruelly ironic considering how charmless and easily forgettable Matsuda is. He's perfectly adequate in whatever role he's in but don't expect him, or this star vehicle, to make much of an impression.