SETTING: Present days

LOCATION: Osaka and Shikoku

SYNOPSIS:
A coroner inspects a dead body brought in, and reports "Tattooed" as physical distinction. It is the corpse of TAKEDA AKIO.
AKIO committed a robbery-murder to get spending money at the age of 15, but upon turning twenty, he is released from probation and vows that he will do something very big before reaching thirty. To erase his past and start life anew, he gets a perm his hair, a tattoo of a peony on his chest and a job of a waiter/bartender in a cabaret in an entertainment district of Osaka. There, he woos the cabaret's top hostess MICHIYO forcibly and starts living together with her. However, they soon fall out. In a hurry to prove his masculinity to his mother who lives in Shikoku, earnestly looking forward to his success in life, AKIO quits his managing position which he has been promoted to and sets up a gift delivery business for himself, which, however, is a front for a debt collection agency.
MICHIYO, disgusted with such AKIO, runs off to another man. AKIO plans to pull off a bank heist with his childhood pal, SHIMADA, a taxi driver now, whom he met after a long absence. He devours reference books to derive inspiration and ideas for a bank robbery and practices shooting. He commands unwilling SHIMADA to get a car ready, and roars into a bank in Osaka with gun-bursts. It is on January 26, 1979, just before his 31st birthday.
AKIO's mother SADAKO is brought to the scene from Shikoku by the police to persuade her son to release the bank employees he has taken in hostage. After prolonged tension-filling hours, eventually the police make a concerted shot upon him to save the hostages.
His mother gets off the midnight train, carrying a box of his cremated bones. She puts his cap on her head and sits on a bench on the deserted platform.

NOTES:
The film is based on a bank robbery that actually took place in Japan. In the true incident, the robber seized on the bank for 40 hours, during which time he, pointing his gun at bank employees, made them cut off each other's ears, ordered female employees to bare themselves, and imposed merciless cruelty and wanton brutality of all upon them. In an ordinary criminal case, the police would have followed its strict policy to arrest a criminal alive, but in that particular case, the police had to shoot him to stop further harm on the hostages. This incident was broadcasted live on nationwide television, which glued people to their sets.
However, the film internationally eliminates depiction of the incident itself and focuses on the personality of the criminal... the uneducated punk with a haughty air from a remote countryside who felt urged to do something big before thirty.
Director TAKAHASHI BANMEI, whose talent in 'pink films' (pornographies) has been widely acknowledged among young moviegoers, made his debut with "TATTOO" in the field of general pictures. UZAKI RYUDO, whose mainstream is music composition, delivers good performance in acting as well with his hard boiled looks.