Episode 291: SAILOR SUIT AND MACHINE GUN (1981) with Blake Hester

Trylove

With special guest Blake Hester!

When a secretive businessman passes away before he can be crowned chairman of a local yakuza family, his daughter — a precocious, disaffected schoolgirl — is suddenly thrust into the role. Surprised by her coronation but determined to restore the group’s good name, Izumi (Hiroko Yakushimaru) reluctantly assumes control of the once-great Medaka Family to close the power vacuum and fend off power plays from other local gangs with one thing in their sights: A missing bindle of heroin worth millions last held by Izumi’s father.

At first blush, Shinji Sōmai’s debut feature has all the makings of a fun, charismatic, compelling spin on yakuza stories. So why did it leave us wanting? It has a lot to do with the movie’s marketing, sure, but something tells us that our expectations weren’t the worst of its issues.

Find Blake…

• At https://blakehester.rocks/
• On Twitter at @metallicaisrad
• In the pages of “The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom”, the crowdfunded tome he’s writing about the peripheral-based music video game genre
• On Something Rotten, the podcast he co-hosts about nihilism in video games
• On Trylove episodes about POSSESSION (1981), PULSE (2001), BURST CITY (1982), SAMURAI REINCARNATION (1981)
• On Letterboxd at @blakedtfp

References:

• ”A Youthquake for Yakuza: Coming of Age in Sailor Suit and Machine Gun” by Jake Rudegair for Perisphere, the Trylon blog
• Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy tickets at https://www.trylon.org/
• Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/perisphere-blog-post-guidelines/

OtherProgramming #DCP

Follow us on Twitter at @trylovepodcast and email us at [e-mail] to get in touch! Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: "Sailor Suit and Machine Gun (セーラー服と機関銃)" performed by Hiroko Yakushimaru from the SAILOR SUIT AND MACHINE GUN soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 291: SAILOR SUIT AND MACHINE GUN (1981) with Blake Hester

6:16 - The episode actually starts

7:52 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

9:29 - Whatever you’re expecting this movie to be, it’s not quite

22:31 - vs. pinku and other, more successful forms of Japanese exploitation cinema

26:53 - Hiroko Yakushimaru as Izumi

30:49 - The disconnect at the heart of this movie, focusing on futile masculinity, etc.

37:17 - The final act and where the movie really baffles

39:28 - What a “more successful” version of this movie might look like

52:09 - Why does this movie have such a cult following?

58:53 - To All the Loves We’ve Tried Before: 1981

1:01:29 - The Junk Drawer