KINJITE: FORBIDDEN SUBJECTS and the Bitter Aftertaste

KINJITE: FORBIDDEN SUBJECTS (Blu-ray)

1989 / 97 min

FROM MGM

Available at www.MovieZyng.com

Review by Princess Pepper😾

When discussing movies, especially online, I’ve endured countless people jacking their jaws (ad nauseum) about how and why certain older movies “couldn’t be made today,” sometimes contemptuously adding that people these days are too easily offended. And in defending those films, they’ll inevitably argue that those movies need to be viewed in the context of when they were made, when cultural norms and attitudes were different.

Okay, whatever. It doesn’t change the fact that the Asian stereotypes depicted (for laughs) in Sixteen Candles and Breakfast at Tiffany’s are extraordinarily cringey, context be damned. The only difference between those two films and Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects is that almost nobody remembers the latter. 

Kinjite was one of Charles Bronson’s last gasps as an action hero and the nadir of his dire Cannon years. If it were anything more than a footnote in his long career, those same jaw-jackers would be citing it as another movie that couldn’t be made today. I’ll go one further and say it shouldn’t have been made in 1989. It was offensive back then, too. 

As a lifelong Bronson fan, it was sad to witness his descent into exploitative mediocrity during the 80s, repeatedly putting his career in the hands of a director (J. Lee Thompson) who stopped giving a damn years earlier. But even by their severely tempered standards, Kinjite is a bottom dweller. Not because the film is poorly made. From a technical standpoint, it’s efficiently directed and Bronson actually looks like he’s trying. However, the sleazy approach to its subject matter and repellent attitude toward the Japanese - mostly through it’s protagonist - overshadows everything.

Guess who just stabbed his own palm.

Bronson plays Crowe, a dedicated L.A. cop obsessed with nailing a sex trafficker, Duke (Juan Fernandez), who preys on young girls. He’s also very protective of his 15-year-old daughter, Rita (Amy Hathaway), who’s starting to blossom, as demonstrated in a really creepy scene where she’s lovingly photographed dripping wet after just winning a swim meet. Concurrently, Hiroshi Hada (James Pax) is a Japanese businessman with weird sexual appetites, which includes groping Rita on a city bus. Afterwards, Crowe declares his hatred of all Japanese people, most vividly during an angry, racist tirade on a public street.

When Hada’s own daughter is taken and turned into a prostitute, Crowe is on the case, unaware Hada’s the one who assaulted Rita. But other than a moment when Rita recognizes Hada but says nothing, these storylines don’t intersect, meaning the entire bus incident feels like an excuse to present the supposed Japanese conceit that groping young girls in public is okay because Asian women prefer to be silently humiliated rather than speak out. And tellingly, one major character faces no consequences for his deviant behavior. 

Elsewhere, there isn’t any actual sex in the film - and very little nudity - but it frequently objectifies young girls in scenes obviously created to titillate. Child trafficking is a worthy subject for crime thriller, but not with such a cavalier approach as this. And really, there’s no real purpose behind the entire Japanese portion of the story other than to suggest the culture objectifies young women. Sure, Crowe has a change-of-heart regarding his own racism, but unlike Walt Kowalski’s epiphany in Gran Torino, it feels superficially tacked-on. Even if viewed in the context of when it was made, Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects leaves a bitter aftertaste.