Branded to Kill

The story

After botching a job, third-ranked Japanese hit man Goro Hanada becomes the next target in the same yakuza underworld that hired him. Jô Shishido is Hanada, a contract killer whose routine starts to unravel when a mysterious woman, Misako (Annu Mari), pulls him toward an assignment that goes wrong. The setup stays close to gangland business—ranks, rivals, handlers, targets—but the details are stranger and more stylized than a standard crime story, from Hanada’s fixation on the smell of steamed rice to the unnerving presence of butterflies and an unseen assassin closing in.