Hanada Goro, "Number 3 Killer,"is hired by gang boss Yabuhara as escort to a mysterious underworldfigure--a mission fraught with danger--while Yabuhara busies himselfwith Hanada's wife. Three assassinations later, the insecure Hanada(Suzuki perennial Jo Shishido) would seem to be moving up in the ranks,but when he bungles a fourth because a butterfly settles on histelescopic sight at the crucial moment, he finds that failure cannot betolerated in the underworld. Branded to Kill is an expert yakuzathriller, visually exhilarating ("every moment is one of thosemoments"-David Chute, Film Comment), cinematically playful, whilegoing all the way with Suzuki's brand of eroticism and cruel humor, muchof it at the expense of the hero. (Hanada, for example, is able tobecome sexually aroused only when sniffing boiled rice.) "Anabsurdist thriller that 'de-constructs' the themes and rhetoric of thegenre so thoroughly that it ends up resembling Godard's almostcontemporary Made in USA." (Tony Rayns)