skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Film: Sukiyaki Western Django
Release date: 2nd February 2009
Certificate: 15
Running time: 121 mins
Director: Takashi Miike
Starring: Hideaki Itô, Masanobu Ando, Kôichi Satô, Kaori Momoi, Yûsuke Iseya
Genre: Action/Western
Studio: Contender
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
This is an English-language release.
Takashi Miike’s name is synonymous with the effect and style of Asian extreme cinema. Most notably Ichi The Killer, Audition and Three Extremes displayed a penchant for gore, twisted characters and the sickest of themes. With Sukiyaki Western Django, we are given Miike’s take on the spaghetti westerns of old. If this director’s reputation is anything to go by then this project promises a depiction of gun slinging worlds apart from the works of Sergio Leone and John Sturges.
The film starts sometime in the past as loner cowboy Piringo sits by his campfire with rattlesnake for dinner. As a small gang of enemies approach him, he tells the story of an ancient rivalry between the Genji and Heike clans, one which has been going strong since the Genpei war. He reveals a prophecy, “the mighty fall at last, to be no more than dust before the wind,” and in a flash he kills his attackers.
Many years later, and the rivalry lives on as strong as ever in the rural western town of Yuda. The white warriors of the Genji are lead by master swordsman Yoshitsune, and they live in hatred for the red warriors of the Heike and their talisman Kiyomori. The small town is growing poorer by the day, but there is great wealth to be found there - legend hints that lying somewhere in the hills is an ancient treasure of staggering value. The two rival tribes are each determined to find it before the other.
One day a gunman rides into town, and although mystery surrounds his past and his appearance, it soon becomes apparent that he is a highly skilled shot and warrior. Both tribes offer him riches beyond his wildest dreams for his help in finding the treasure. As speculation rises as to who he will join, so too does intensity between two lifelong enemies. Soon the small town breaks into a frenzy of murder, backstabbing and split allegiances...
One of the most striking and eye-brow raisingly strange elements of Miike’s film is the language in which it is spoken. This is technically the Japanese director’s first English-language film, but the delivery of the language comes in a way that is so stalled and disjointed that it is barely coherent. With subtitles throughout, this is no doubt deliberate, and it serves to produce the biggest of eastern/western contrasts - it also brings a smile to hear lines like “paybacks a bitch,” and “smells like victory,” spoken in an accent that makes it sound utterly foreign.
The presentation of the script reeks of homage to the type of dialogue you would expect to find spoken by Eastwood or Brenner - it does indeed borrow much from Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 script for Django, which is the film’s main basis. The homage’s come thick and fast, and not only offers the most comedic of parody but shows the director’s infatuation with the genre. We are treated to showdowns, femme fatales, and a mass of other genre conventions - the notion of the lone gunman who comes to town played by Hideako Ito has Charles Bronson written all over it, and the film’s cowboy town is called ‘Yuda’ based in ‘Nevada’.
With a wealth of spaghetti western elements on show, Takashi Miike’s attention to style is still the most effecting part of the film, and its slight downfall. The film has a cameo role for Quentin Tarantino, and it would seem this film has been done much in the same light as 2007 geeked out parody fest, Grindhouse . Unfortunately, it also shares a very similar smugness, and although you must admire Miike’s ability to create remarkable imagery, this film is not as smart as it thinks it is. The bizarre nature of his work may be his trademark but it comes across in many places here as thoughtless – take, for example, the hyper schizophrenic sheriff whose presence on screen is utterly grating.
The imagery, though, is at times beautifully weird and wonderful. We see a range of heavily painted backdrops, a wardrobe that is a pleasing mix of rugged western and Asian robes and, of course, the gore is top notch. Miike is able to show the most stomach churning and explicit visuals to the most comic effect - in one laugh out loud scene, a protégée of the Heike clan has a sword embedded into his skull to the shock of a silenced room, but as blood spurts from his head, he continues to attempt a block.
Unfortunately, the film’s superior style seems to sacrifice any clear plot, and the narrative is often too busy. A cast of unbelievably perverse and crazy characters compete for the screen, and the action is so hectic and relentless that it is all a bit too much to comprehend – the fight scenes are ruined. That said, for fans of Takashi Miike, this is pure indulgence, and to many, its mindless violence is not necessarily a bad thing.
In the context of Miike’s back catalogue, this is not one of his better films. Although this will divide audiences, the prospect of seeing a man as peculiar in his ways as Takashi Miike tackling something as classically revered as the western is a sight to behold. For fan boys especially, this is very worthy of your attention, with enough action and incident for three western epics. LW
Film: Deadly Outlaw: Rekka
Release date: 8th November 2010
Certificate: 18
Running time: 96 mins
Director: Takashi Miike
Starring: Riki Takeuchi, Sonny Chiba, Joe Yamanaka, Yuya Ichida, Ken'ichi Endô
Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller
Studio: Arrow
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
A yakuza film is bread and butter for Takashi Miike, and Deadly Outlaw: Rekka (Jitsuroku Andô Noboru kyôdô-den: Rekka), sandwiched between the sadistic violence of Ichi The Killer and the surrealism of Gozu, is surprisingly ordinary when compared with much of the director’s oeuvre. However, the straightforward nature of this 2002 film is the essence of its charm.
When Kunisada’s (Riki Takeuchi) yakuza boss and mentor Sanada (Yuya Uchida) is murdered, he plans vengeance despite the new leaders seeking a truce between the clans. With his best friend and side-kick Shimatani (Kenichi Endo), the hot-headed henchman takes revenge on opposing families and goes on the run.
However, he soon finds the plot runs a little deeper and no-one can be trusted, not even the bosses who secretly sanctioned his revenge. Cue yakuza renegade action as Kunisada takes his fight to everyone en route to a climactic shoot-out with the assassins who killed his mentor…
The narrative is a straight-forward revenge story set in the murky world of organised crime, and, with a running time of 95 minutes, Miike is in no mood to meander through Shigenori Takechi’s screenplay. The opening montage gets the film out of the blocks at a blistering, breathtaking pace as Miike chops between the hit men riddling yakuza with bullets and Kunisada (in police custody for a minor crime) feeling something is wrong, and desperately trying to escape.
Although the film never again reaches the whirlwind pace of the first sequence, quick cuts and an economic script ensure the viewer is just as breathless throughout. Even before the shoot-outs get going, when much of the action is just discussion between yakuza in grotty apartments, the film has an all pervading intensity to it.
This effect is down in no small way to the soundtrack. The music, provided by Japanese psych-punk outfit Flower Travellin’ Band with their album ‘Satori’, drives the action with fast, thrashy riffs. Juxtaposed with the dialogue and the occasional outright silence, the contrast gives every scene a focus and concentration.
This intensity is mirrored in the performance of Takeuchi, whose apoplectic Kunisada boils with rage, sometimes hidden below a serene surface, at other times bubbling over completely. For instance, when rival yakuza members taunt him early in the film, he reacts by brutally killing several of them in public. Indeed, Kunisada is so angry and so intense, his emotions and actions seem exaggerated, and this sense of farcical hyperbole runs through the film.
Despite the bloodshed from start to finish, it is never gratuitous or graphic, as in other Miike films; rather the intermittent and overblown violence is a source of morbid humour. This is especially true towards the climax, where the vengeful pair’s weapons have inexplicable explosive strength, resulting in a decent into goofiness akin to cartoon violence.
The director’s often surreal and dark sense of humour makes a few appearances in the film, in particular with the two assassins behind the original murder played by Ryôsuke Miki and Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi. The unlikely partners in crime, one mature and methodical and one young and wild, are a classic double act with a Miike twist, and their complete indifference to life and death in their work is a source of sinister amusement from the very beginning.
Despite the light touch in much of the film, Deadly Outlaw: Rekka is not entirely devoid of substance. It depicts the majority of yakuza life with gritty realism, staying away from plush Tokyo penthouses furnished in black marble, and avoiding the overtly stylish directing which often accompanies films tackling the glamorous side of gangster life. Instead our heroes and those in their sights live in cramped apartments and sit on old dirty furniture, giving the film a bleak, colour-washed tone.
There are moments of genuine tenderness, too, through the loss of a father and husband, the camaraderie of the low-ranking yakuza, and the loyalty of the young men they inspire. Tender also in the unexplored but desperate melancholy of the young girl Myung Hyung, played by Mika Katsumura, whom Kunisada picks up before embarking on his quest.
It is a film with all the hallmarks of a classic gangster caper. It has revenge and violence, black humour and pathos, the small take on the mighty and morality is at best a blurred lined. Despite this adherence to genre, it is by no means a run of the mill film. Its wackiness, which could be mishandled in less capable and creative hands, gives it a freshness and originality in such familiar territory. It is a pulp yakuza movie and fan-boy homage to the genre’s straight-to-video market in a similar vein to the Grindhouse movies of Tarantino and Rodriguez, only Miike did it five years earlier and without so much self-congratulatory fanfare.
Deadly Outlaw: Rekka is such unabashed fun it will leave you feeling indulgent and sporting a maniacal grin from start to finish, just like the one, you might imagine subsequent to viewing, Miike wore while making it. Concentrated to an hour-and-a-half, as so few recent films are, it hits you like a shot of pure audio-visual entertainment straight in the arm. GC
Sex, gore, ultra-violence, psychotic Yakuza hitmen, the blackest of humour, Sonny Chiba, a pounding proto-metal soundtrack, and gratuitous and inappropriate use of a tire iron and a hand-held rocket launcher – it just has to be a movie from Japan’s most prolific and unpredictable cult filmmaker and master of Asian extreme cinema, Takashi Miike (Sukiyaki Western Django; Ichi The Killer; the Dead Or Alive trilogy; Audition).
Written by Shigenori Takechi (Blood; Izo) and produced by Tsuneo Seto (Blood) – both real-life Yakuza before taking up careers in the movies – Takashi Miike’s Deadly Outlaw: Rekka is an expertly crafted tale of vengeance and betrayal set in Japan’s vicious criminal underworld.
Following the death of his boss, crazed killer Kunisada embarks on a violent quest for revenge, one that takes him on a deadly and surreal road trip as he searches for those responsible for the killing.
Driven by madness and a volatile temper, he soon finds himself up against both his enemies and his own Yakuza allies. Pursued by a pair of hitmen, Kunisada is at once the hunter and the hunted, a pawn in a complex game being played out by a cast of double-crossing villains.
With his situation spiralling out of control, he realises that to be the winner will require him to take matters to furthest extreme.
Stylistically inspired by Japanese hard rock pioneers Flower Travellin’ Band’s 1971 album, ‘Satori’, the music of which constitutes the film’s entire soundtrack, Deadly Outlaw: Rekka is a must-see (and must hear) movie for Takashi Miike fans. Featuring a standout lead performance by frequent Miike collaborator Riki Takeuchi (the Dead Or Alive trilogy; the Fudoh trilogy), plus amusing fan-pleasing cameos from the legendary Sonny Chiba (Kill Bill) and Flower Travellin’ Band members Joe Yamanaka and Yuya Ichida, this is pure visual rock’n’roll!
This release features a brand new transfer of the film with new and improved subtitle translation, and is packaged with a booklet containing stills; an essay on the film by Tom Mes, author of ‘Agitator: The Cinema Of Takashi Miike’; and notes on prog. rockers Flower Travellin’ Band, the stars and providers of the soundtrack to the film, which have been written by Sam Jones.
Film: Deadly Outlaw: Rekka
Release date: 8th November 2010
Certificate: 18
Running time: 96 mins
Director: Takashi Miike
Starring: Riki Takeuchi, Sonny Chiba, Joe Yamanaka, Yuya Ichida, Ken'ichi Endô
Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller
Studio: Arrow
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
DVD Special Features:
•
Original trailer
•
Video interview with director Takashi Miike
•
‘Deadly Outlaw: Miike’ – Takashi Miike discusses key scenes from the film and working with his collaborators
Film: Visitor Q
Release date: 24th May 2004
Certificate: 18
Running time: 86 mins
Director: Takashi Miike
Starring: Ken'ichi Endô, Shungiku Uchida, Kazushi Watanabe, Jun Mutô, Fujiko
Genre: Comedy/Drama/Horror/Thriller
Studio: Palisades Tartan
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
Known throughout the world as one of the most controversial and prolific Japanese directors working today, Takeshi Miike has transcended the formulaic trappings of his earlier work to continually strive to subvert the conventions of cinematic narrative, while challenging what is deemed acceptable to be shown on screen. The very mention of Visitor Q is often met with a mixture of repulsion and curiosity, directly challenging the viewer to accept the warped logic, graphic violence and absurdist humour as it presents itself.
The film centres on a news reporter named Kiyoshi Yamazaki (Kenichi Endo) and his family as they try to make sense of their exaggeratedly dysfunctional household. Opening with a home-made video of father-daughter incestuous prostitution, the main theme of the film is established with the inter-title: “Have you ever f**ked your dad?”
The absolute destruction and disintegration of the stereotypical family unit is explored at length throughout the film. The mother, Keiko (Shungiku Echida), also works as a prostitute to fund her escalating heroin addiction. The son, Takuya (Jin Mutô), is severely bullied, channelling his aggression towards his mother, whom he mercilessly beats with a riding crop at every opportunity. A pseudo-documentary style is adopted, mirroring Kiyoshi’s former profession while allowing the viewer a candid, fly-on-the-wall look at this failing family.
The dysfunction is interrupted by the arrival of the titular Visitor (Kazushi Watanabe), an enigmatic stranger who announces his visitation by striking Kiyoshi over the head with a rock, shocking him, and the audience, into action. He then proceeds to accompany him home and inexplicably integrate himself into their family.
The narrative continues as Kiyoshi sets out to make a documentary about violence in Japanese youth, using his son’s humiliation as a subject. The Visitor records Kiyoshi recording his son as the violence unfolds around them, culminating in an act so unspeakable, it really has to be seen to be believed. The fallout of Kiyoshi’s breakdown, helped in no small part to the enigmatic Visitor’s role as a guardian angel of sorts, prompts the family to re-evaluate their domestic lives and assert their conventional roles in the most unconventional of ways…
Written by Miike’s sometime collaborator Itaru Era, the script is funny and smart. The combination of outright absurdity and comedy, coupled with the (sometimes overly) enthusiastic delivery of Endo, creates a surreal contrast to the subdued, dignified performance of Echida, as the matriarch struggling to hold everything together as her family self-destructs around her. Mutô, as Takuya, the bratty, obnoxious school boy also delivers a strong performance, especially as he is broken down and humiliated by his class-mates, expressing adolescent rebellion and inner-turmoil to great effect. It is easy to pity him, but easier to be appalled by his outbursts of anger. The key performance, however, comes from Watanabe’s Visitor. Not unlike Ichi The Killer’s Kakihara in screen presence and unhinged cool, Watanabe steals the show. With subtle, knowing glances and inappropriate smiles as Kiyoshi films the chaos around him, he manipulates the action and brilliantly commands the attention of both the on-screen family and the audience themselves.
Shot on an obviously low budget, using limited lighting (although to great effect, especially in the firework attack) and digital video, Visitor Q uses the idea of a documentary film-within-a-film to ensure that the production doesn’t feel cheap, while offering an overt sense of gritty realism to the satire. The mise-en-scene sets up the family home (where the majority of action takes place) as conventional and average. As the action unfolds, however, the set literally begins to fall apart, in an extremely effective (albeit obvious) technique used by Miike to draw parallels with the family’s disintegration.
It goes without saying that the film is disturbing, it is literally impossible not to baulk at certain scenes, but Miike uses this to implore the audience to sit up and take notice of his problems with Japanese culture. The absurdity lies in the use of sound. A comedic “pop” as Kiyoshi is detached from a defiled corpse, and a “whoosh” as he flies into action to defend his son signal the two most shocking scenes, goading the audience into a futile attempt to remain straight-faced. It is this union of comedy and extremely disturbing scenes that makes the film unique, and literally unlike anything you have ever seen before.
The narrative may seem confusing at first, but once conventional logic is abandoned, the message becomes clearer. It is a film that demands at least two viewings. The first to be disgusted, disturbed and amazed by the sheer audacity of what is being shown, and the second to establish the thinking behind the violence without the extra baggage of the unexpected.
Miike masterfully utilises the absurd to subvert the idea of family as the ultimate goal for society. A true original, Visitor Q is disgustingly brilliant, proving that scant regard for censorship and a no-holds-barred attitude to filmmaking can really affect an audience. Many will be put off by the film’s reputation as an obscene excuse for testing the boundaries of what can be shown on film, but beyond false preconceptions lays a challenging film with real heart and a strong message. RB
Film: The Bird People In China
Release date: 3rd October 2005
Certificate: 15
Running time: 118 mins
Director: Takashi Miike
Starring: Masahiro Motoki, Renji Ishibashi, Mako, Li Li Wang, Tomohiko Okuda
Genre: Adventure/Comedy/Drama/Fantasy
Studio: Siren
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
A change of tact for one of the most outlandish film makers Japan has to offer, who has become infamous to western audiences for extreme horror and crime shockers such as Audition and Ichi The Killer.
The story takes us along a journey with Mr Wada (Masahiro Motoki), our businessman, sent as a late replacement for a sick colleague on a trip to the mountains of China in search of a very rich vein of the precious jewel, Jade. Along for the ride is Mr Ujiie (Renji Ishibashi), a Yakuza gangster, whose boss has sent him to verify the jewel claim, their interest laying in the unpaid debts by Mr Wada's firm. Both are sold on the idea by their respective employers, on the promise of authentic Chinese cuisine.
From their first, unspoken meeting on a train, to their shared, diabolical van ride (wherein the passenger door falls off), it is clear that the gangster is unhappy to be on the trip. Their guide, Mr Shen (Mako), takes the entire trip in his stride, having made the journey countless times and seeing little to be concerned with, despite the impending storms and torrential rain.
As the three continue via converted tractor vans, rickety bridges and turtle powered rafts; they finally reach their destination and begin to swiftly form a bond with the villagers…
Takashi Miike has taken the opportunity with this feature to delve into the lighter side of Asian cinema (a little off the beaten track from his usual psychopath and sociopathic characters). If you are a fan or even a vague viewer of Japanese cinema, you won't have failed to catch a glimpse of this director’s aforementioned more recent films. The Bird People Of China, however, is the breakthrough 1998 film that made Miikes' progression possible.
The title of the film gives the impression that you might be entering a world of fantasy, and, in a way, that’s an accurate assumption. Wada and Ujiie are stranded, following their guide’s bout of amnesia, and, as such, are free to explore and live the lifestyles of the villagers. While enjoying this new found existence, they witness the children of the bird school breaking in their new ‘wings’, and discover the upright, tail end of a WWII aeroplane nose planted in a lake.
Mr Wada meets the teacher of the Bird School, Miss Si-chang (Li Li Wang), and spares little time in finding reason to be curious about her and the school, documenting her singing via a tape recorder. The men decide to query the little hamlet and investigate what keeps the inhabitants where they are, but also why they may be willing to give it all up so freely.
The cinematography tells the story as much as the script, not hard given the picturesque and startlingly colourful landscape - mountains that touch the clouds and valleys that travel for hundreds of miles litter this feature. Possibly the most endearing and entertaining image throughout the film is found when Mr Wada, holding a pink umbrella, comes across Mr Ujiie (not the best of friends, given a swift beating earlier in the film) mid bowel movement, and he is ordered to keep the rain off his head while he finishes.
Music and song are provided in the form of village woodwind instruments and the stylings of actress Li Li Wang, which further deepen the viewer’s isolation within this environment.
The underlining subject of seclusion and technological alienation is played out throughout the film, with little shown of the big bad world there yonder. It's the struggle between accepting your place in the world and carving a new path that tortures our characters most, trapped in an existence they aren’t fully understanding of, they find their new lives free of expectation and judgement.
The Bird People In China is a detailed and thoughtful film that crosses a wide variety of genres with real ease. Its stylized/iconic shots detract from any other world and fully immerse the viewer in a land of escape and idealism.
Performances from the two leads are deft, subtle and warming throughout – and it's hard not to appreciate a film with lines such as, “This is Yun Nan and my butt is sore. Now behind a thin wall a Yakuza is taking a shower. I must sleep with him in the same room.”
Takashi Miike, despite his obvious talents, provides only what is needed to a script which is laden with suggestion and clear joy. Reigning in his penchant for violence, he shows another facet to his filmmaking abilities, and perhaps delivers a career high. DWI
Film: Audition
Release date: 28th June 2004
Certificate: 18
Running time: 111 mins
Director: Takashi Miike
Starring: Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina, Tetsu Sawaki, Jun Kunimura, Renji Ishibashi
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Studio: Tartan
Format: DVD
Country: South Korea/Japan
It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly eleven years since Takashi Miike’s disturbing tour de force tore its way through the festival circuit and onto our screens. Yet more than a decade after its release, the director’s most infamous feature still holds the power to shake you to your very core.
Audition is based on Ryū Murakami’s cult novel of the same name, and focuses on widower Aoyama (Ishibashi) and his search for a new partner. Aoyama is urged by his son to begin dating again many years after the death of his wife, but fears starting the dating process again. Enter Aoyama’s video director friend Yoshikawa, who offers up the unethical idea of holding a fake movie audition in order for Aoyama to peruse many women at the same time.
Almost from the outset, Aoyama becomes smitten with 24-year-old former ballerina Asami Yamazaki (Shiina), and, after the audition, he finds the courage to ask her out on a date. The pair begin a romantic relationship, despite warnings about Asami from Yoshikawa, and Aoyama asks Asami to go away with him on a romantic weekend trip. Things are going well, until Asami disappears without a trace. This leads Aoyama on a nightmarish journey into a twisted underworld of abuse, torture and tragedy. Asami is not what she seems, and this culminates in the film’s final iconic scene…
With a back catalogue of over eighty films and television series’, it often feels like a lucky dip when picking out a Takashi Miike feature. Strike lucky, and you will receive a true cinematic gem, crafted with an unrivalled flare, constantly challenging the viewer in new ways, but on the other end of the spectrum, you find the mark of a director for hire, with some dire by-the-numbers titles padding out the ranks. Fortunately, Audition is the flag bearer for the former, the director’s calling card internationally, and constructed with a Hitchcockian approach that leads the viewer by the nose until the final shocking conclusion.
The film is a masterful deconstruction of the romantic comedy genre. We recognise the stock characters, the lonely lead who wants to be loved, the vulnerable girl whose personality needs to be coaxed out by romance, the woman who is hopelessly in love with the lead character much to his chagrin, and the best friend who acts as the enabler for the film’s plot. The archetypes are complimented by light-hearted music, snappy editing, a sharp script and rather slow pace at first. This all changes with the second half of the film, however, which takes great delight in taking the viewer on a surreal and ultimately horrific outing into the world of one very disturbed woman. That’s all we are saying about that as the second half of the film should really be left for the viewer to discover for themselves.
Audition is greatly aided by two fantastic performances from its leads, Ishibashi plays his role with warmth and compassion that completely draws you in as his quest becomes an increasingly bizarre scenario. It is this performance that holds the juxtaposition of styles in the film’s two halves together. Miike has designed the jolt in style in order to provoke a reaction but Ishibashi’s performance allows the film as a whole to flow together without turning the viewer off. Eihi Shiina gives the performance of a lifetime, too, and almost certainly without her Audition would never have obtained the reputation that it still holds today. Shiina is flawless as the innocently psychotic Asami striking fear into the hearts of many, evoking a feeling of abject horror that is not for those without a strong stomach.
Miike juxtaposes two different styles together in order to create a plane crash sized jolt to the viewer, but the film is more than just a mesh of two styles thrown together to shock and disgust. The film feels akin to a nightmare. Everything is fine, as in a regular dream, but then suddenly something happens, and you descend more and more into a horrific world that is out of your control. The film’s bouncing between orange tone and blue hue combined with the more surreal aspects of the film - dream sequences and hallucinations - only add to this sense of nightmarish helplessness that cannot be prevented.
Audition will always sit atop the pile of Takashi Miike’s films as his most lovingly detailed and nuanced film, despite many other outstanding contributions, such as Dead Or Alive and The Happiness Of The Katakuris, amusing given the film’s short production time, and being just one of a handful of films Miike was developing at the same time.
Audition is a must see for any fan of Japanese extreme/horror cinema. It has earned its reputation, and next to Oldboy should be considered the cornerstone of modern East-Asian extreme cinema. CSA
Film: The City Of Lost Souls
Release date: 18th November 2002
Certificate: 18
Running time: 103 mins
Director: Takashi Miike
Starring: Teah, Michelle Reis, Kôji Kikkawa, Mitsuhiro Oikawa, Patricia Manterola
Genre: Crime/Thriller
Studio: Tartan
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
Takashi Miike’s films polarise audiences around the world. From the Freudian nightmare of Visitor Q, to the rom-com turned torture porn of Audition, Miike’s films are deliberately difficult. His films misbehave, so The City Of Lost Souls was never going to follow a traditional ganster plot-line.
The film concerns a Japanese/Brazilian killer for hire, Mario and his relationship with Kei, a Chinese hairdresser, who he saves from being deported. Quickly becoming lovers they soon get married and decide that the only way for the two of them to be happy is to leave the country.
What initially begins as a plan to procure passports spirals out of control until they become entangled with local gangs, one in particular who, though it is never explained precisely why, is obsessed with Kei, and plots to tie her up for his own sexual gratification...
Like most Takashi Miike films, the main plot is a springboard for an innumerable series of sub-plots, ranging from the terrifying to the demented. While the local television presenter and his dwarf companion seek to expand into the cocaine industry, a local cockfighting pit plays regular host to atrocious CGI chickens who battle to the death in pantomimic Matrix-homages. We also have the man who casually has sexual intercourse with pigs, the break-dancing assassins, the brothel containing a blind girl with mystical powers, and the bumbling police men who have the mafia bugged, but chose to never actually intervene in the ensuing insanity.
While the film’s enthusiasm for chaos is infectious, it is marred by its own post-modern sentiments. Its knowingly ironic shoot-outs and references to other films recall all too readily the Tarantino-inspired films of the 1990s, while it’s pre-occupation with bodily fluids becomes grating rather than amusing. Most obviously the film reminds the viewer of the Oliver Stone directed Natural Born Killers, which makes similar points about the media portrayal of violence, uses flash-cuts and MTV inspired pacing, and shares the same narrative formula of couple-in-love on the run. While in Natural Born Killers Juliette Lewis and Woody Harrelson created characters that were as likeable as they were obscene, here we are presented with two boring protagonists that are given no back-story or personality with which to connect.
To focus purely on plotting and character-development is to perhaps miss the point. The visual style of the film is what the main attraction is, and while a lot of the effects and ideas have dated, this still makes for a dizzying viewing experience. Much like his film Ichi The Killer, Takashi uses a range of generic conventions and filming styles to create a movie in flux.
At the beginning of the film, we are shown a scene which is a clear homage to Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy, before delving straight into a Hollywood-esque car chase sequence; when one of the many sub-characters visits a prostitute, the film becomes a grainy hand-held affair; the cock fighting sequences are lacklustre animation; and the film is full of disorientating visual tactics such as the looping of a single frame/scene as if the film has simply stopped working.
The film’s clever use of experiential camera techniques and knowing humour grow tiring when there is no human element to attach it to. The plot becomes muddled and confused, the characters are two-dimensional, and it all seems too familiar. When you consider this film was made by the same director of the tightly-plotted Audition, or the gruesomely effective Gozu, its faults become all the more unforgivable. This film is a narcasstic act of showing, in which the audience’s pleasure is down to whether you are prepared to forgive a total lack of plot for a spectacular cinematic frenzy.
Takashi Miike’s post-modern western creates an intense visual experience which, with joyful abandon, revels in cartoonish ultra-violence and gratuitous toilet humour. Self-indulgent but undeniably affecting, he creates an assault to the senses that will delight his cult-following, but will appear dated and childish to others. AC
Film: Ichi The Killer
Release date: 9th November 2009
Certificate: 18
Running time: 120 mins
Director: Takashi Miike
Starring: Tadanobu Asano, Nao Omori, Shinya Tsukamoto
Genre: Crime
Studio: Cine Asia
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
Based on Hideo Yamamoto’s manga, 2001’s (reissued on DVD at the end of 2009) Ichi The Killer has become infamous for its excessive graphic violence (few extreme asian films have come close), but does it offer anything more to viewers with a strong enough stomach, or those with a (worrying) craving for grotesque brutality?
Sadomasochist Kakihara is searching for his Yakuza boss, Anjo, who has disappeared along with 300 million of the mob’s yen.
Kakihara, who we discover has an intimate and disturbed relationship with Anjo (which he later attempts to recreate with a potential new girlfriend - but she is unable to inflict beatings with the necessary ferocity), heads an aggressive search for his beloved keeper that includes brutally torturing a rival Yakuza on the strength of a mysterious tipoff.
With the mentally imbalanced, and responsible vigilante Ichi continuing his Yakuzu killing spree with increasing spectacle, however, it’s not long before Kakihara is on the right track, disturbingly excited by the prospect of facing off with a man capable of such repellent actions…
The plot is simple enough, but director Takashi Miike manages to stretch proceedings out to over 120 minutes, all the time confusing viewers with experimental cinematographic techniques (although he thankfully tires of his initial penchant for altering the film’s speed), unnecessary sub plots, and the introduction of countless characters, who we know little to nothing about, and who either disappear or are quickly sacrificed to titillate gore fans. With the director cramming so much in unnecessarily, fairly vital flashbacks, seamlessly incorporated, could easily be missed and only compound the perplexity.
With the film-makers focus on blood splatter, following any kind of story is hard enough, and violent scenes are either sickeningly realistic (the mutation of the captured Yakuzu is distressing – hung on large hooks by the skin on his back whilst Kakihara pierces his face with giant needles, before pouring boiling oil onto his back – whilst his apology, to cut off his own tongue, is no less upsetting), or over-the-top and laughable (an arm is wrenched out of a socket following a long, entertaining struggle; a man is tortured inside a TV set; coagulated blood sprays out from neck wounds; a face is taken clean off, which we see sliding down a bloodied wall; a blade concealed in Ichi’s boot splits a man clean in two…).
Sexual dysfunction is a theme throughout (we see dripping semen during the title screen), and whilst you can laugh off Ichi chopping up and disembowelling criminals, the rape scenes are particularly unforgiving – in one scene, we see a Yakuzu boss beating a prostitute’s already ghastly swollen face.
As violence fluctuates between comical and depraved, and the film mixes abuse with some genuinely deft humour (the team bemoaning the mess they have to clean up after one of Ichi’s early massacres), the film lacks a coherent mood, but whether you’re ridiculing some fairly out there film-making or turning away, this is a twisted ride all the way – with the musical score, at least, consistently demented.
With two such outlandish characters as Ichi and Kakihara, both actors, Tadanobu Asano and Nao Omori respectively, have a hoot, and both creditably manage to standout.
Despite the excess, Ichi is the hero of the piece (illustrated by his leather ‘costume’), brainwashed and manipulated by former cop Jijii, and disposing of evil criminals. Although you never really warm to him, as the trembling wreck he is (we see him cowering under a blanket at his games console), not because of Tadanobu’s performance, but because the carnage doesn’t allow any connection.
Kakihara, of course, revels in it all. Facial piercings hold his extended mouth together (slits either side allow him to blow smoke out to good effect, although when he removes these to gnaw on a man’s fist the special effects are atrocious), whilst his facial scars and punk attire present the archetypal “bad boy”. There is no back story, or any hint of remorse or a sympathetic side to his character – he is pure evil (this is the cartoon element of the film).
When the film pulls everything together, you realise what an intelligent and thought provoking piece this should have been, with some neat revelations and strong messages, but by this point any potential impact has been lost.
Such a manic rollercoaster of a movie is always going to be worth a look, and there are several startling must-see scenes for any serious film fan, but this is hard going – and surely no sane person would enjoy viewing two hours of serious physical violence at the levels depicted here. DH
