is a 2001 Japanese film directed by

Seijun Suzuki , born (24 May 1923 – 13 February 2017), was a Japanese filmmaker, actor, and screenwriter. His films are known for their florid visual style, absurd humour, and a playful rejection of traditional film grammar. He made 40 predominately ...

and starring

Makiko Esumi (born 18 December 1966 in Izumo, Shimane Prefecture, Japan) is a former Japanese model, actress, writer, essayist, and lyricist. Esumi is most well known for her role as Chinatsu Tsuboi in the Japanese television drama series '' Shomuni''. Esu ...

Cast

as Miyuki Minazuki, a.k.a. Stray Cat, a.k.a. Killer No. 3 *

Sayoko Yamaguchi Sayoko Yamaguchi (Japanese: 山口小夜子, September 19, 1949 – August 14, 2007) was a Japanese model and actress. Early life Yamaguchi was born in Yokohama and graduated from Sugino Gakuen's Dressmaker Gakuin design school in Tokyo. ...

as Sayoko Uekyo *

Kirin Kiki was a Japanese actress for Japanese cinema and television. Biography Kiki was born on January 15, 1943, in Kanda, Tokyo. Her father was a master of the ''biwa'' lute and a former police officer. Her mother owned a cafe in Jinbōchō, Tokyo an ...

as Minazuki's grandmother * Mikijiro Hira as Goro Hanada, a.k.a. The Champ, a.k.a. the former Killer No. 1 * Hanae Kan as Sayoko, the young girl *

Kenji Sawada is a Japanese singer, composer, lyricist and actor, best known for being the vocalist for the Japanese rock band The Tigers. Nicknamed because of his self-professed adoration of Julie Andrews, he was born in Tsunoi, Iwami (now part of Totto ...

as Assassin NO.2 * Jan Woudstra as Painless Surgeon, a.k.a. No. 5 *

Masatoshi Nagase is a Japanese actor and singer. He is best known in the West for his roles in Friðrik Þór Friðriksson's ''Cold Fever'' and Jim Jarmusch's ''Mystery Train (film), Mystery Train''. Nagase was described by Todd Brown of Twitch Film as "one of t ...

as the Man in Black, a.k.a. Dark Horse *

Haruko Kato was a Japanese actress. Biography Haruko Kato was born in Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo, on 24 November 1922. After training at acting school, she was signed up with the film production company Toho in 1939, debuting in ' in the same year. She marri ...

as Shizuka Orikuchi

Production

Hanada is not played by

Joe Shishido was a Japanese actor recognizable for his intense, eccentric yakuza film roles. He appeared in some 300 films but is best known in the West for his performance in the cult film ''Branded to Kill'' (1967). In Japan, he is also known by the nickna ...

this time, but by Mikijiro Hira; Suzuki has said that the original intent was for Shishido to play the character again, but that the film's producer, Satoru Ogura, wanted Hira to play the character instead. The reasons for this are still unclear.

References

External links

* * *
Pistol Opera
' at the

Japanese Movie Database The , more commonly known as simply JMDb, is an online database of information about Japanese movies, actors, and production crew personnel. It is similar to the Internet Movie Database but lists only those films initially released in Japan. Y. ...

{{Seijun Suzuki 2001 films 2000s avant-garde and experimental films 2001 crime thriller films Films about contract killing Films directed by Seijun Suzuki Girls with guns films Japanese avant-garde and experimental films 2000s Japanese-language films Japanese sequel films Shochiku films 2000s Japanese films