Dead or Alive

Hey this wasn't bad at all. I expected shocking violence and gory thrills, based on the film's reputation, but what I got instead was a thinking, feeling, bizarrely creative film. This was my first Takashi Miike film, and my expectations were low, partly because he's so hyped, and partly because I'm over being shocked, and his films have a reputation of being, well, shocking. The character of the cop is especially palpable, and the scenes that take place in his home are more like the quiet moments of a Beat Takeshi film. This dramatic realism is somehow anchored in the otherwise chaotic flow of the rest of the film. There's a real anything-can-happen vibe to this film that keeps you on the edge, yet when you reflect back upon it, there are really only a few heavy action sequences. I thought that was pretty brilliant, though some may feel disappointed by the low count of flipped cars. Hey wanna see an action film? See Formula 51; that had plenty of action, with no damn reason for any of it. And what a forgettable film that was. Dead or Alive is rollicking and at times inexplicable, but never boring. Highly recommended.

I have no other way to say it: this movie was brilliant! When I saw it last week at the Rotterdam Film Festival, I was completely blown away! And I wasn't the only one... Several other people at the theater actualy gave a (well deserved) standing ovation! This movie was just extraordinary. Not Miiki Takashi's best work (that would be Audition), but certainly one of his most enjoyable and fun flicks! I am amazed that the director is so unknown outside of Japan, because he really is a genius, inventing cinema all over again. He is only in the movie making business for about four years, but already has a body of work that counts no less than 15 movies which are all original and perfect in their own way. In Japan he is well known and is counted to the film avantgarde, but none of his movies really got a wide cinema distribution. Most of his movies are relatively low budget and made for TV, Video or small cinema release. Maybe this gives him the freedom to constantly re-invent himself and push the limit of movie-making in general and perverse, cruel detail in perticular.

Now back to Dead or Alive. The first ten minutes are just breathtaking and eccentric. But after this the movie pulls back into a more conventional Yakuza vs. Cop story, only to go completely over the top at the end. The end effectively blows up every genre convention and just HAS to be seen to be believed.

The basic story is, like I said, quite conventional and simple; a cop tries to solve a case of a group of hitman who have robbed an armored truck. This of course can not be done without getting personally involved and if that wasn't hard enough, he has some grave family trouble too, because his daughter needs an operation which he can not pay. Meanwhile the leader of the killer group is reunited with his younger brother he raised, who does not know anything about his profession. The kid brother tough is destined to choose sides once he finds out that blood money payed for his college education abroad. Meanwhile the band of killers gets involved in a yakuza gang war, fighting over a drug cartel.

The middle part, in which the story unfolds, is shown with very little action and at moments can be compared to the calm style of Takeshi Kitano. But Takashi's signature is always very clear, and there are a lot of small perverse elements that illustrate his tendency to push it to the limit. There is a scene, for example, where a gangster kills a girl by drowning her in a kiddy pool filled with her own poop. But over all the story is told in a very compassionate way, sometimes balancing on the edge of melodrama, but never getting too sentimental because there always is a certain ironic detatchment. Despite this sometimes Kitanoesque detatchment and calm, the movie succeeds in making you really care for and relate to the charakters. I think this really is a big accomplishment. Finally combining this more conventional, 'humane' crime/drama story with the outrageousness of the beginning and the end, and making this combination work, shows how brilliant Takeshi really is. A director that has to be watched carefully!

10 out of 10

Watch out, this one is not for the squeamish AND those without a sense of humour. The first five minutes are the biggest roller coaster ride I've experienced in a long, long while and left me breathless. What follows is a mix of heroic bloodshed, Yakuza-flics and manga in the flesh. The ending left me laughing way into my eighth drink. Not as creepy as his Audition, but way more fun.

On the DVD for Dead or Alive, the first in the trilogy, director Takashi Miike is asked how he would describe the movie to someone who had no idea what it was about, and he describes it as an "enjoyable, healthy Yakuza movie". 'Healthy' is a word I tried to put into context with the film after seeing it, and I'm still not sure how it applies, except maybe in the sense of Miike sticking to a good deal of conventions this time around. It's definitely not that one can't see Miike's mark all over the picture, as it certainly isn't your grandfather's yakuza/crime movie (matter of fact not even John Woo). It's just that with certain elements, like the two main characters: the detective Jojima (Sho Aikawa) who's the decent, hard-nosed sort with the wife and daughter; and Ryuuichi (Riki Takeuchi), who has the face like one of those really crazy villain character actors in 40s film-noir, who wants to take over the mob in the area, by any means necessary. I felt like I could've seen some of this in any given yakuza thriller, albeit my lack of experience with the genre of "V-Cinema" in the 90s or yakuza thrillers in general.

Then again, for Miike he uses a lot of this to spring-board his own visual ideas and real tricks with the material. The way he starts to film is truly and unequivocally disorienting- I had to watch it twice just to sort of, kind of get a sense of what the hell I was watching. It gives the impression, which is both wrong and right with D.O.A., that it'll be a totally knock-your-socks-off work of gonzo film-making, where aberrant sex, brutal violence, drugs, and gangsters will always be lurking in the night (most disturbing is with the scene in the public bathroom, and then following it with the guy on the wheel-spinner being controlled by a guy on a bike). As the story goes into gear, however, this montage usage disappears, and Miike gravitates back into what one recognizes readily from his other films- fairly long takes and deep focus, and outbursts of insanely creative bits of trashy fun (highlights here include a woman who dies via pool of feces, which is actually really sick, a bit involving bestiality out of the blue, and a gigantic shoot-em-up Chinese vs Japanese battle where Ryuuichi and his gang kill both clans in one swift stroke).

Actually, seeing Miike in more genre-familiar territory isn't a bad thing, and sometimes a scene will come up that's meant to play seriously, and does, where in a lesser director would go for the cheap bits with lesser actors. An example of this is the fate of a character's brother, who betrays by taking money not really his and tries to talk his way out of it. So it's actually Miike still experimenting, though it's not a totally fulfilling trip in part because the conventions start to dull up in the middle. It's when Miike finally gets into that last third, with that wildly bloody shoot out- including both hilarious flights of fancy (a thug who was hiding comes out with a sword and goes ape-s*** all over one of the thugs) and the tragic (a character who was a surprise to show up gets killed). The fates grow darker for the detective character, who really was just looking for money somehow for an operation for his daughter. But his allegiance to the law gets put aside, and the "final scene" comes to a head.

Here Miike finally puts his 'wild-man of cinema' gears to full throttle, and it's exciting (as mentioned in trashy, violent, exploitive action-movie ways), ridiculous, and in the end jaw-droppingly funny. It's a good sign of things to come at the end, with the two big stars of V Cinema duking it out as if it's the old West again and the sheriff and outlaw have nothing to lose except for their 'special surprises' up their sleeves at the last bloody gunned down moment. What came before it wasn't all that great overall, and the first in the trilogy, even with a few sweet near X-rated touches of physical and psychological disturbance, doesn't amount to one of Miike's finest triumphs, I wouldn't of traded seeing the last three minutes of the film (final shot included) for anything. 7.5/10

After seeing "Oodishon" and "Koroshiya-1," I became an instant fan of Miike Takashi's filmmaking style. His ability to present what would be in the hands of another director a hacknyed and familiar story is nothing short of brilliant. He takes old formulas and infuses them with new life, sometimes through shock value, confusion, humor, and actually brilliant filmmaking. His visuals are always incredible, where even the most mundane shot looks like a great photograph, proving that Miike has a great eye. So here we have "Dead or Alive: Hanzaisha," the first in what would become one of the most controversial and bizarre trilogies in film history. It has relatively good acting, and a great ensemble cast, including two of my favorite Japanese actors (besides Takeuchi and Aikawa, there's Terajima Susumu and Osugi Ren, both alumni of Kitano "Beat" Takeshi's films). Make no mistake, this is not your run-of-the-mill action/drama movie.

The overall story has been done, basically the cop vs. criminal motif. Ryuichi (Takeuchi Riki) heads a small group of misfits who were once Chinese war orphans. Having no place either in the Chinese Triads or the Japanese Yakuza, they wage their own little streetwar against both sides. Detective Jojima (Aikawa Sho) is hot on their trail, but he has problems of his own. He knows his wife is cheating on him and their daughter is dying and he can not afford the operation needed to save her life. It sounds like something out of a John Woo movie, right? Something akin to "Hard Boiled" or "The Killer," but whereas John Woo presents violence in an operatic sense, Miike shows us something more hip and gritty.

The beginning sequence of the film is a montage of everything from gay sex in a bathroom, to snorting 18-foot lines of cocaine, to strippers, to arterial spray, to gluttony, to...pretty much every deadly sin out there. Is it shocking, not particularly (at least not to me), but the MTV-style editing full of fast cuts, sexual imagery, and bright colors gives it a burst of adrenaline that is just a counterbalance to what becomes a very slow and quiet film for the most part. The main plot of the movie is presented in a style similar to Kitano "Beat" Takeshi, with long shots and conversations between characters, with only the most shocking acts of depravity made unshocking by the characters' reactions. There is a scene where Aikawa talks to an informant who is setting up to film a bestiality scene, and his reaction is...almost nonexistent. Or the Yakuza's reaction to their boss drowning a girl in a kiddie pool full of her own feces. It should be shocking and disgusting (and it is), but the shock is diminished by the banality of it. It's as if Miike is playing with the audience, testing our limits and asking us to question what we find acceptable. If another director presented these acts, he or she might show it as if to glamorize it, to overemphasize its putridity. Miike...just shows it as if it's normal, and while some will be offended by this, he has often made the claim that he just wants to get a reaction. And one way or the other, he does. This is the point of the ending, which for awhile matches the ultrahip attitude of the beginning before delving into territory best left to fantasy films. But again, Miike has given us a surprise that is both shocking...and somehow expected because it's unexpected.

The best way to explain this is that line from the movie "Se7en," when Morgan Freeman says to Brad Pitt, "If John Doe's head opens and a UFO flies out, I want you to have expected it." This perfectly describes "Dead or Alive: Hanzaisha" and Miike's style. If it's a Miike film, you're going to see things that are unexpected and even offensive, but because it's Miike, you almost DO expect it, and it almost DOES make a strange sense. Again, he's playing with the audience. Do we really know what we want? Do we really know what to expect? No...and that is Miike's strength. So what if it breaks all the rules of good plot and storytelling, so what if it breaks all the rules of good filmmaking? It's Miike, and it's his formula in full swing. "Dead or Alive: Hanzaisha" is pretty much the epitome of Miike's brand of filmmaking.