The intoxicating paranoia of being a foreigner or outsider in Brazil’s yakuza underworld gives Shiro Hirata Carlos the exact profile that would prevent him from ever succeeding as the leader of a Japanese clan without arousing suspicion. but instead gave him the unquestionable recklessness to become the favourite hitman and find himself in the middle of the bloody storm between the two feuding families, Yamashiro and Harakawa.

This antihero recalls the imponderable black humour of Takashi Kitano’s characters, albeit with a touch of Takashi Miike’s irreverence and gore – to mention some neo-yakuza filmmakers – but that said, the impeccable photography is evident throughout the film, far superior to what one would expect from a V-Cinema film.

The Yamashiro brothers made the mistake of talking down to someone as volatile as Carlos, but on the other hand, Sato recommended his brother Tetsuo Katayama to the unknown gunman, and immediately, or almost immediately, he got along with Tetsuo (or almost, because in reality they misunderstood each other). Tetsuo Katayama pays for the flower arrangements and questions him about why he doesn’t even wear a tie.

The histrionic Carlos doesn’t like the comments, and he likes people like Katayama even less, but he and his gang are desperate for money, and they’ve been locked in the basement of the club for a long time. While preparations are underway to kill Hayakawa, the film focuses on the filial or family ties between him and his inseparable Goro. The problem is that the same side hires an American who does finish the job and eliminates Hayakawa on an evening when he appears out of the shadows outside his home, shooting the other members of the yakuza leader’s gang.

Carlos, on the other hand, wears a mask and, accompanied by Goro and his henchmen, kills another yakuza leader by mistake, causing Tetsuo to explode in rage because his succession plans are falling apart. Tetsuo sends his brother and his men to hang Carlos to torture him – in fact, they were about to cut off his genitals in the dirty hangar – and he was supposed to kill him, but he escapes, not before breaking the executioner’s head in a fit of rage and heading off with Goro to take revenge on Tetsuo. First, Goro beats up Maya, Tetsuo’s lover; then, when Tetsuo finishes his mobile phone call in a public car park, Carlos and Goro mercilessly shoot him, which causes a chain reaction because the events in Yamashiro send the American back to exterminate Carlos’s relatives, who arrives too late to save them, and even Goro dies.

The suspense sustained for 40 very, very long seconds in which the defeated American closes his eyes waiting for the coup de grâce is commendable, only to open his eyes and have his brains blown out. I won’t dwell on the yakuza successor leader who tried to confront Carlos with his sword and got shot in return, but when he came out, the police had him surrounded. At least one bullet was for the elusive Sato, who had already escaped. A shotgun bullet, in front of the police, no less. An anime film, if the familiar sweetness is cloying, it is offset by the salt of the blood, raw.