Quote:
While it has been reported on several anime news sites that the newest Takashi Miike film is based on the Hashida Yukari “boy’s love” manga, WARU, the live action film is actually based on a popular 70s manga of the same title. Japanese sources clearly credit Hisao Maki’s dramatic action manga, WARU — an edgy action-packed tale of outlaw swordsman Youji Himuro — as the story on which the film is based.Read More »
(from Japanese Film Festival)
Lion Standing in the Wind is based on a real story and chronicles the inspirational life of Dr Koichiro Shimada who sets off to Kenya to serve as a medical doctor. In a turn of events, he finds himself stationed in a hospital in Lokichogio in the heart of the Kenyan conflict. Witnessing death and the grim reality of child soldiers rocks him to the core and propels him on a path that he did not expect. He abandons his life in Japan and devotes himself to saving lives in Kenya.Read More »
Synopsis:
In Japan’s underground yakuza society, some men define themselves by honor, others by vengeance… and some are beyond definition – cold-blooded merciless sociopaths. And in this remake of Kinji FUKASAKU’s cult classic, celebrated director Takashi MIIKE redefines the Yakuza movie genre. Based on the real life of an infamous gangster, Graveyard of Honor is the story of Rikuo ISHIMATSU, a lowly dishwasher who unknowingly saves the life of a Yakuza Oyabun and quickly rises to a position of power in his gang. Loyally supporting his Oyabun and his brother gangsters, Ishimatsu wreaks havoc on anyone who stands in their way, inevitably earning himself a trip to the slammer.Read More »
A Takashi Miike film that is, to a degree, autobiographical, Young Thugs – Innocent Blood follows three friends through their first year after leaving school. Having robbed their teacher on their last day at school, Ryoko gets a job in a hair salon, while the two boys settle down to a career of enforcement and protection.Read More »
Quote:
One can certainly wonder why the prolific Takashi Miike is hooked on directing such nutty films. First, lactic effusion, a recurring theme in his cinema (Visitor Q), seems to obsess him, even though that doesn’t explain everything!
Be the judge: a yakuza, at his life’s end, starts to exterminate chihuahuas, convinced that the poor animals have fomented the destruction of his fellow human beings. His paranoiac crises multiply, he becomes a threat for his Organization. His boss orders his execution and charges his most faithful friend to take care of the dirty job.Read More »
Regarded as a milestone in cult maestro Takashi Miike’s career, Osaka Tough Guys (Naniwa Yuukyôden) is the bridge between his work as an apprentice director and as an auteur. It also displays the two distinct themes that he would explore in later work.Read More »
Based upon the manga by Hisao Mali, Silver centres around the exploits of Jun Shirogane (Shinobu Kandori), a karate expert and undercover police officer who conventionally has also undergone FBI training in the US. After her family who worked for the Secret Service are brutally murdered, she agrees to infiltrate a group of criminals known as the ‘Viper’s Nest’. The fact that she is also a karate expert gives her an upper hand in the seedy world of wresting that she has to inhabit in order to mete out justice to her family’s killers, adopting the name of ‘Silver’ as her wresting alter-ego and undercover moniker. Standing in her way, is the beautiful but dangerous, Nancy, a dominatrix and part of the powerful Otsunami yakuza family. Will ‘Silver’ manage to escape the sadistic attentions of Nancy, who is and I quote ‘the most powerful and stimulating woman of her generation’ and take her revenge, or will she become just another masochistic plaything for deadly femme fatale?Read More »
In order to settle a business dispute, a mob leader murders one of his own teenage sons. The surviving son vows to avenge his brother’s death, and organizes his own gang of teenage killers to destroy his father’s organization.Read More »
Synopsis:
A rowdy, young yakuza takes revenge against a gang of thousands for the death of his boss.
Review:
Wow! The second and final part Miike’s Yurusarezaru mono (or: The Man in White) is pretty damned impressive! Following directly from the previous part’s cliffhanger ending, Miike steps up the action tenfold, adding new deranged characters to obstruct Azusa’s path of vengeance for the death of his boss.Read More »