Manabu Kato

Chinese Dinner

Hoshino (Toshiro Yanagiba) is the mob-connected owner of a ritzy Chinese restaurant. One evening he’s sitting down in a lavishly appointed private room to enjoy an elaborate multicourse dinner, when he gets a call from a crooked politician of his acquaintance. A long-meditated money-laundering deal is about to bear fruit and earn him a cool 5 billion yen. The gang boss who backed him on this deal will be pleased. He is, understandably, in the mood for celebrating when an unexpected visitor (Izam) arrives — a tall, husky, mincing fellow in dreadlocks, with a gun. He is a hit man sent to whack Hoshino — but for what? The hit man neither explains nor kills; instead he sits down at the table and asks Hoshino when dinner is going to be served. Coolly, Hoshino calls in Chinese for the waitress, who enters, wearing a red, slit dress and an inscrutable expression, with the first course. The longest meal of Hoshino’s life has just begun.