Photograph: Billy O'Hare

David Fear, film critic
Señor Fear has been a TONY film critic since 2004. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle and has written about movies for the San Francsico Bay Guardian, Blender, Filter and MSN.

Marc Walkow, reader
Boss Walkow is the codirector and programmer for the New York Asian Film Festival. He has produced Japanese movies for Image Entertainment, TLA Video and the Criterion Collection.

The challenge
The contenders must tackle four rounds of Japanese mob-flick trivia, while an audience gawks in the upstairs lounge of IFC Center. Correct answers are worth one point each; if either competitor fails to answer correctly (or at all), he must take a swig of bottom-shelf sake. Questions were penned by NYAFF cofounder Grady Hendrix; David Wilentz, who writes about Asian film for The Brooklyn Rail; and Patrick Macias, author of TokyoScope: The Japanese Cult Film Companion.

Round 1
We start ’em off easy: Define yakuza. Walkow has the quicker draw but Fear nails the exact translation: “eight, nine, three.” The guys miss a softball about which director shares a name with an auto manufacturer (Seijun Suzuki), but Walkow regains face by answering five questions before the end of the round. Fear gets two, and both toss back shots when they miss a Hideo Gosha doozy.

Round 2
Walkow answers the first question (What was Yasuharu Hasebe’s directorial debut?) with lightning speed, then eyeballs Fear and hisses, “Nervous?” They polish off a bottle of Miyasaka “Yawaraka” Junmai by question no. 4 (okay, Fear mostly polishes it off), and Japanese beers are procured from the IFC fridge. The match resumes and by question no. 6 (something about Reiko Ike and the “crotch-gouge murders”), Fear shows complete reverence: “Dude, I’m impressed,” he tells Walkow. “I’m gonna need to borrow some DVDs from you.”

Round 3
The audience has grown to include a preteen and passersby waiting in line for the IFC bathroom. Several references to seeing double and a trick question about Abashiri Bangaichi later, and no. 8 is a welcome softie: What culinary utensil does a yakuza boss use for anal stimulation in Takashi Miike’s Gozu? “Spatula!” shouts Fear. Wrong. “A wooden spoon?” guesses Walkow. Nope. “A ladle!” yells Fear, pounding his fist on the table. Oh, to be right.

Round 4
TokyoScope’s Macias wrote the questions in this round, earning it the nickname of the “Good-Fucking-Luck Section.” Walkow answers three out of the first four correctly, but by the sixth Bunta Sugawara– or Koji Tsuruta–themed multiple choicer, he looks point-blank at Fear and suggests, “Can we just hit each other over the head with the bottle?” Fear shrugs: “I won’t feel any worse than I do now.”

Bonus picture round
In a final effort to help the boys ratchet up their scores, we bust out posters and movie stills. It’s neck and neck until Walkow pulls into the lead with his whiplash recognition of scenes from Toshio Masuda’s The Gangster VIP and Miike’s Ichi the Killer and Full Metal Yakuza.

The final score Walkow: 27, Fear: 9
The contenders shake hands and Walkow hugs his victory bottle of Yuki No Bosha Junmai Ginjo. Fear, who earlier had said he knew he was in trouble when Walkow could translate the Japanese characters tattooed on his forearm, just shakes his head: “We seriously need to get together.”