The film starts out as hard-hitting realistic as it gets. Neri (Sakura Ando) is the “third-base coach” of a gang of phone scammers. Her job is to direct the movements of the “catcher”, the man who will meet the victim of the scam and receive the loot.
The victim in this case is an elderly lady. She picks up the cash from her bank, then proceeds, as directed by the scammers, to Central Namba. The meeting point with the “catcher” is supposed to be outside the Hotel Royal Classic, a luxury hotel known for its exterior resembling a kabuki theater.
Neri and the “catcher” make their way through the wide pedestrian streets of Namba – streets familiar to any resident of Osaka and frequently walked by visitors to the city.
Absolutely innocent looking streets populated by plenty of regular folks. Just that the camera closely follows the criminal elements and their victim, the old lady with the red handbag.
Then, suddenly, Neri flashes a sign to the “catcher” – let’s break it off and get out of here. The scammers had been scammed, she senses. Plain cloth police are all over the place, the old lady is their bait to get the whole gang arrested. Neri was right.
Back in the dingy headquarters of the scammer gang, that is no big news. Scammer boss Takagi (Katsuhisa Namase) accepts it just as business as usual.
Takagi likes to boast that he has connections to the highest ranks of the yakuza as well as to high-level politicians. But he knows that he runs a risky business and that the politicians he works with can’t protect him from the actions of every single eager police detective.
Phone scammers are a real problem in Japan. It would be great to watch a movie focusing on those scammers, on their motivations, methods and internal gang structures. Gritty, realistic and playing out right there in the city streets we all know and take for granted as safe places.
The opening scenes of Bad Lands promise to deliver exactly that. Call it unfortunate but soon after the super-realistic opening scenes the movie turns into a crime fantasy populated with an overload of highly artificial stock characters.
Any realism gets thrown out the window in favor of one goal, it seems. That goal being the celebration of actress Sakura Ando and her ability to look good and stay cool no matter the circumstances.
And, hell, yeah, Sakura Ando is incredible in the movie. She plays the ultra-cool criminal chick with a big heart and murky violent past to full fore. It’s just a pleasure to watch her acting. She is great indeed.
Meanwhile, the story gets complicated. Scammer boss Takagi turns out to be the father of Neri, a very bad history connects the two. Then, Neri’s stepbrother Jo Yashiro (Ryosuke Yamada) shows up fresh out of prison and Neri gets him a job in Takagi’s scammer group.
Jo doesn’t care much for the scammer job and would rather like to rob Takagi blind for quick cash.
Jo and a bunch of his friends take on an additional job as hitmen. They fail terribly but the job leaves Jo with a gun.
Not to reveal too much of the plot here but Takagi does get killed in the middle of the movie. Neri and Jo dispose of his corpse and are left alone in his office in a remote house somewhere in the middle of the woods.
At that point, the film totally changes gears. Now it’s all about Neri and Jo’s efforts to access Takagi’s funds, liquidate all his assets and get the hell out of Dodge before the criminal organizations Takagi is involved with get wind of the situation.
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Bad Lands (Japan, 2023) バッド・ランズ
The film, directed by Masato Harada was based on the 2015 novel Keiso (Fight) by Hiroyuki Kurokawa. Kurokawa co-wrote the screenplay together with director Masato Harada.
All the film’s action takes place within one week, from Monday to Monday. Monday is signified by the Monday Lady, an apparently crazed woman in strange disguise running through the Kamagasaki (aka Airin) neighborhood of Nishinari Ward every Monday. Everyone knows her as the Monday Lady, nobody knows who she is, the film says.
Bad Lands, the place lending its name to the title of the movie, is a large pool hall / bar in Nishinari, run by Arai Mama, played by enka singer Yoshimi Tendo. The pool hall seems to have no other customers but Takagi, Neri and her closest friends.
The pool bar is apparently not far from Sankaku Koen (Triangle Park) in the center of the homeless area of Kamagasaki. Neri lives at the “Fellowship Villas”, an adjoining fictional decrepit housing project for the homeless, owned by Takagi.
In fact, Neri is a fugitive. She escaped a ten-year period of being a sex slave to one ultra-rich pervert named Goya in Tokyo. Goya controls almost all of Japan with his huge business empire and he absolutely wants Neri back in his grip. Only Takagi with his own criminal and political connections can protect her.
We get to see Goya in action a few times in the movie. His character, played by Yasushi Fuchikami is beyond cartoonish… a picture-book bad guy with hardly any roots in reality.
Then, there is Mandala (played by rock singer / veteran actor Ryudo Uzaki), a retired yakuza and former business associate of Takagi.
He always took great care of Neri when she was a child. Now he is a hard-drinking gambler living in the same housing project as she does, right in the center of the Kamagasaki homeless area.
Mandala is still incredibly loyal to Neri and it is him who saves Neri at the end of the movie.
Mandala is a fantasy character to be sure. The loyal old gangster with quick wits and a heart of gold, eventually shaking off his boozing habit to be in top form for the final act.
The by then 77 year old Ryudo Uzaki delivers a great performance, he’s no doubt one of the stars defining the film. At a much younger age, Uzaki was the lead actor in Tattoo Ari (1982).
Netflix Release
Bad Lands, a co-production by Toei and Sony Pictures was released worldwide by Netflix.
While Osaka / Japan residents may certainly have wished for the realism of the opening scenes to be continued, the international viewers of the subtitled versions offered in a multitude of languages were the real target audience of the movie.
Viewers familiar with Japanese or Asian crime films, out for a fresh look at the genre but most likely not very much interested in the real situation on the spot. Searching for wild entertainment with a beautiful cool female protagonist and plenty of already familiar characters acting out.
A recipe that worked out perfectly. By all accounts, the world-wide Netflix release was a great success.
The Director: Masato Harada
Masato Harada, born in 1949, was a movie nut from his childhood days on. He said that he spent his early youth watching about a hundred films per year. At the theaters, as it was common back in the day. Working with movies was all he wanted to do.
While many of his contemporaries started out with pink movies, Harada was fascinated by the films of the New Hollywood. Edgy, realistic pictures that attracted large international audiences. Like, say, Bonnie and Clyde (1967).
To pursue his career, Harada went to London for English language studies, then spent six years right there in Hollywood, learning the craft of film directing as assistant in various American productions.
Back in Japan in 1979, Harada finally got the chance to direct his first movie Farewell, Movie Friend: Indian Summer.
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) lists 30 films directed by Harada since then.
Harada has worked in a number of genres but is best known for realistic dramas with a wide public appeal. Kamikaze Taxi (1995) and Bounce Ko Gals (1997) are perhaps his internationally most widely known films.
Besides directing, Harada was also busy as film reviewer for Japan’s premiere movie magazine Kinema Junpo, focusing on American movies.
He did international subtitle work as well. For example, notoriously detail-obsessed director Stanley Kubrick initially rejected the Japanese subtitles for his Full Metal Jacket (1987). He then hired Masato Harada for a new translation – a translation that found truly adequate equivalents for the many American swearwords in the movie’s dialogues.
Eventually Harada made it big on the Hollywood screen as an actor in the Tom Cruise movie The Last Samurai (2003). He also had a substantial acting role in the Hong Kong action thriller Fearless (2006), starring Jet Li.
Bad Lands is a Masato Harada film all the way through: starting out with gritty realism, then turning into a genre piece with as wide an appeal as possible.
Actress Sakura Ando
Sakura Ando was born in 1986 into an entertainment family. Her father, Eiji Okura is still active as movie actor and director, her mother Kazu Ando is an essayist and actress.
Thus, Sakura Ando started out in acting very early in her life. She had her first movie role in A Long Walk (2006), directed by her father.
This was followed by roles in major art house films like Sion Sono’s Love Exposure (2008).
One of her first lead roles was in Yang Yong-hi’s Our Homeland (2012), a North Korean zainichi (Japanese resident Korean) drama which was based on events actually taking place in the youth of Osaka-born director / writer Yang Yong-hi. The location of the film is clearly Osaka. It was filmed in Tokyo, though – the director simply had not the funds to move the whole cast and crew to her hometown for the shooting. The film was selected as the Japanese entry for the Foreign Language Academy Awards in 2013.
Sakura Ando’s eventual grand international recognition came with the Hirokazu Kore-eda film Shoplifters, winning the 2018 Palme d’Or, the main prize of the Cannes Film Festival.
Today, Sakura Ando is in very high demand in Japanese cinema. Rightly so. Just watch Bad Lands and you can see her acting in the most incredible ways.
Osaka Locations
The titular Bad Lands pool hall and the scammer headquarters are located in Kamagasaki (now named Airin), the homeless area in Nishinari Ward. Both Neri and Mandala live right next to Sankaku Koen (Triangle Park) in the center of Kamagasaki.
Thus, Kamagasaki is one of the focus points of the movie. Much footage was filmed right on location in the area.
The Abeno Harukas Towers, located nearby are on prominent display as well.
The other focus point featured in great detail is Central Namba including Namba Station.
Yodobashi Bridge is a bit further north, connecting the Nakanoshima river island to the southern part of Osaka. Namba being located in that southern part.
Further images of Osaka, including the actual Osaka Police Headquarters are scattered throughout the movie.
So, yes, this movie is 100% an Osaka movie. That Goya, the ultimate baddie of the film is a Tokyo guy fits right into the narrative. Osaka may have a lively violent criminal scene but Tokyo… that’s where the real enemies reside.
