Seijun Suzuki's last film for Nikkatsu, 'Branded to Kill' is the wildly perverse story of the yakuza's rice-sniffing "Number Three Killer." Sleazy yet elegant, 'Branded to Kill' deconstructs gangster cliches and eluded censorship by the Japanese film board with its inventive use of framing and mattes. From a cookie-cutter studio script, Suzuki delivered this brutal, hilarious and visually inspired masterpiece: and was promptly fired.