Smoking (2018) is a noir drama series focused on the life of a gang of four assassins operating in the Tokyo’s criminal underworld. The group members are the four killing themselves the roles of executioners, and to bring down one of them, money is paid to the person who takes him down. The entire movie is set in a dystopian era when people could be killed for almost nothing, or railed for breaking the law, at least in a minor way. They are really nothing like the typical assassins, rather, their mission is to kill off the bad guys and at the same time, maintain the balance in the nature of things and they do it by using the most horrific and absolute method they choose to go by.
The person in charge of the squad is Hiroshi or “The Artist,” as the other members of the gang call him. Hiroshi is very meticulous, and a regular magician with the details and intricate plot baits which he always has ready for the jobs they are assigned. Hiroshi was left all alone and thrown among wild beasts of nature only a step away from a tiger catching a teenager by age one in the painting of his life. Then again, he had been very intensely learning how the destiny works and how things actually come to a man.
The other Soldier is called Satoshi, a boxer once, and now his strength and fighting skills are the reasons why he is the group’s muscle. Satoshi had an amazing way of working his path to the very top by himself and then a devastating fall in the boxing industry, a sport which he had given his heart and soul to.
Our last person is Shinta, who they call “Surgeon,” but in reality, Shinta is a fallen medic who became a victim of his failure and was dismissed from the medical board due to malpractice. However, his medical knowledge and skills are very important for the group’s work, therefore, most of the club’s victims happen to need a “personalized medical treatment” to be successfully neutralized.
As for the last member of the team, the switch goes to Ken, the youngest, who has his share of a dysfunctional background in the yakuza. In fact, his past with the yakuza gang allowed him to be one with the underworld so naturally and fluently. It would be greatly envied by any criminal if he were to be seen as able to get around and mingle with the environment so easily and naturally.
During the whole period of its existence, the team of friends had experimented with different roles. The plot of every new film demonstrated the one who was about to kill in it to be nothing but another hitman. On one side, the storyline revealed the gray areas of their activities, and on the other-hand, it depicted their victims as characters that although deserving their fate were still able to outplay the cops.
Character Details:
Hiroshi "The Artist":
- Role: Leader of the hitmen group.
- Background: Hiroshi is a highly detail-oriented and his tragic past is wrapped up in his personality hence. He was a victim of a violent crime that left him without family and thus brought the engagement of justice.
- Skills: Strategic planning, artistic methods of execution.
- Personality: Calm, calculated, and deeply hurt from his background.
Satoshi:
- Role: Muscle of the group.
- Background: Professional boxer, who, out of a desire to live a better life, joins criminal activity after his ineligibility from the sport.
- Skills: Hand-to-hand combat, intimidation.
- Personality: Rough, loyal, and haunted by his lost career.
Shinta "The Surgeon":
- Role: Medic and torturer.
- Background: Shinta, at first, was a doctor until he had his license taken away due to wrongful malpractice. He uses all he knows about medicine as a toos for their robberies and the money launders.
- Skills: Medical knowledge, torture techniques.
- Personality: Detached, methodical, and cold.
Ken:
- Role: The street smarts person in the yakuza.
- Background: The show uses Ken, the youngest member, as an individual with a related history within the underworld to employ his valuable, underworld connections.
- Skills: The thief can be quite fast, and he can slip through security with relative ease. Aside from the two of them, the mediator of the two is the criminal underworld.
- Personality: Ken is quite forthcoming on trying to get a job done as he is well aware of his talents.
Justice, revenge, and moral ambiguity are some of the deep themes that the show's visuals convey artistically. The characters' growth is logical, and their characters deepen and complicate their motives and the ways they behave. The show is a discovery along with the thrill because it delves into their domestic lives, their pain, and the pressure of their inevitably violent jobs on them.
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