Above, select images from Branded to Kill (1967). Directed by Seijun Suzuki, this stylish noir features a puffy-faced protagonist who is the No. 3 ranked hitman in Japan. He’s clever, an accurate shot, is weirdly attracted to the scent of boiling rice, and luckily wears a bulletproof belt buckle.
Below, a 14-minute interview with Suzuki, recorded in 1997 in Los Angeles. “In normal movies, they take care to show time and space,” he said. “But in my movies, places and spaces change.”