Color, 1998, 118m. / Directed by Takashi Miike / Starring Masahiro Motoki, Renji Ishibashi, Mako, Li Li Wang / Artsmagic (US R1 NTSC), Universe (Korea R3 NTSC), Sedec (Japan R2 NTSC) / WS (1.85:1) (16:9) / DD5.1
SHINJIKU TRIAD SOCIETY
Color, 1995, 100m. / Directed by Takashi Miike / Starring Kippei Shiina, Tomorowo Taguchi, Takeshi Caesar, Kyosuke Izutsu, Ren Osugi
RAINY DOG
Color, 1997, 95m. / Directed by Takashi Miike / Starring Sho Aikawa, Tomorowo Taguchi,
LEY LINES
Color, 1995, 100m. / Directed by Takashi Miike / Starring Takeshi Caesar, Kyosuke Izutsu, Ren Osugi
Artsmagic (US R1 NTSC) / WS (1.85:1) (16:9), Tartan (UK R0 PAL) / WS (1.85:1) (16:9) / DD2.0
The first and most difficult of the three, Shinjuku Triad Society, follows a half-Chinese detective, Tatsuhito (Shiina), prone to assaulting suspects with handy furniture during investigations. Though good at his job, he's more focused on retrieving his younger brother, a yakuza lawyer working for a ruthless, sexually twisted mob boss, Wang (Taguchi). To complicate matters, Wang is also involved in a feud with a Chinese triad organization moving in on his territory, resulting in a twisted web of manhunts and double crosses leading to a particularly perverse final plot twist.
A grimy and fascinating film, Shinjuku Triad Society (Shinjuku kuroshakai: Chaina mafia sensô ) uses its sex and violence as integral parts of the narrative (including a nasty nod to the Razor series via Tatsuhito rape/interrogation techniques) while pumping out enough visual
Two years later, Miikie continued his exploration of the Japanese cultural underbelly with the more sedate Rainy Dog, a somber tale about a former mob official, Yuji (Dead or Alive's Aikawa), living out his days in exile in rain-soaked Taipei. However, a woman from his past turns up to deposit a young boy - supposedly his son - on his doorstep, resulting in a massive lifestyle change. However, a job offer involving a hit on a mob rival brings the youngster even further into his life - along with a struggling prostitute who embarks with the pair on a flight from the new crime bosses.
More a meditative study on violence than anything remotely resembling a celebration of it, Rainy Dog (Gokudô kuroshakai ) fits the more traditional image of Japanese cinema set by familiar names ranging from Kurosawa to Kitano. Aikawa makes for a strong lead here while Miike proves he can do an involving character study with the best of them. As such, Audition really shouldn't have come as much of a surprise; that film's melancholy sense of lost and dearly paid prices could have certainly been borne from the concerns in this film.
Continuing in this vein, the last and most experimental of the three, Ley Lines (Nihon kuroshakai), begins with young children pelting racial taunts recalling the cultural violence of the first film. The young Chinese butt of the insults grows up to be Ryuichi, who decides with his two best friends to explore the promise of life in Tokyo. Accompanied by a larcenous and prostitute, the youths head off to their destinies and find far different circumstances in store than they had imagined.
The most elliptical of the three, Ley Lines isn't as fleshed-out as Rainy Dog nor as extreme as Shinjuku; within this middle ground it instead seems to exist as a stylistic exercise involving beautifully oversaturated colors, with the screen often threatening to drown in seas of gold and orange. It's a fascinating film to watch but feels like more of a rough sketch than its companion pieces, similar in tone to Fukasaku's When We Were Young: Rage rather than what one might expect from Miike.
The trilogy was first released for English audiences from Tartan in the U.K., but the real deluxe treatment comes from ArtsMagic who released each title individually or together as a deluxe box set in fold-out packaging. Either way you get anamorphic
Tom Mes, author of the Miike critical book Agitator, appears for a feature-length commentary on each title and offers a nice series of observations about the themes and character concerns running through each film while offering some useful tidbits of cultural explanation where necessary. The camera-friendly Miike appears once again for different video interviews on each title (alas not as outrageous as his earlier interviews on titles like Audition), while editor Yasushi Shimamura turns up for separate interviews explaining the process involved on each film. Each disc also includes a trailer for its representative film as well as the expected cast and crew filmographies.
Color, 2000, 113m. / Directed by Takashi Miike / Starring Kenji Sawada, Keiko Matsuaka / Ventura/Chimera (US R0 NTSC) / WS (1.85:1) (16:9), Fortex (HK R3 NTSC) / WS (1.85:1) / DD5.1
Determined the help his financially struggling family, Masao Katakuri (Kenji Sawada) decides to start an inn located in a mountainous region of Japan. The whole clan is enlisted to run the establishment: wife Terue (former pop queen and renowned actress Keiko Matsuzaka), rebellious son Masayuki (Shinji Takeda), lovelorn daughter Shizue (Naomi Nishida), and doddering grandfather Jinpei (You Only Live Twice's Tetsuro Tamba). Unfortunately the first customer winds up committing suicide in his room on the first night, and to avoid any possible damage to business, the body is disposed of in a nearby shallow grave. Then along comes a hugo sumo wrestler and his underage paramour, both of whom meeet a particularly grotesque end. Meanwhile Shizue wanders into town and is swept off her feet, literally, by a "half-English" naval officer, Richard (punk singer Kiyoshiro Imawano), who speaks in broken Japanese and bears a suspiciously shaggy haircut. And then there's the nearby volcano that keeps threatening to erupt...
The Happiness of the Katakuris was first released on Hong Kong DVD in a skimpy edition containing only the theatrical trailer. Apart from a dynamic 5.1 mix, the disc is largely missable thanks to the mediocre non-anamoprhic transfer and unwieldly English subtitles punctuated with a large number of errors. The US disc from Chimera, produced with the American Cinematheque, is a much more satisfying addition to their line of Miike releases. The 16:9 transfer is a beauty with razor sharp detail, in many ways even more satisfying than the repertory theatrical prints. The optional English subtitles (very legible, spell checked, and in yellow) are quite satisfying, and the 5.1 audio is even punchier Color, 2000, 105 mins. / Directed by Takashi Miike / Starring Teah, Michele Reis / Ventura/Chimera (US R0 NTSC) / WS (1.85:1) (16:9) / DD5.1
Writing to her mother, pretty Kei (Michele Reis) enthuses to her mother about her wonderful Brazilian boyfriend, Mario (Teah), who's then seen blasting away some adversaries, Sergio Leone-style, in a dusty border town. Mario then hijacks a helicoptor to rescue Kei from a deportation bus, instigating an elabroate chain of events involving a feud between the yakuza and the Chinese mob, a mysterious young girl, and Mario's ex, Lucia (Patricia Manterola), whose help may come at a high price. Then there's Kei's former flame, pretty boy gangster Ko (Mitsuhiro Oikawa), who's after the lovers with an axe to grind, literally.
Spiked with bizarre touches like the now infamous CGI cockfight (a Matrix spoof, believe it or not) and a sadistic showdown straight out of a Russ Meyer film, City of Lost Souls largely avoids the gruesome excesses of Dead or Alive, though you do get
The American DVD presented under the auspices of the American Cinematheque is a tremendous leap over the earlier non-anamorphic, no-frills Tai Seng disc. The transfer looks excellent and, in a rarity for a Japanese title, appears to be freshly struck for
Color, 1999, 116m. / Directed by Takashi Miike / Starring Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina, Renji Ishibashi, Miyuki
Matsuda / Ventura (US R1 NTSC), Tartan (UK R2 PAL), Universe (Hong Kong R3 NTSC) / WS (1.85:1) / DD2.0
Mainstream movies don't come much more disturbing than
Audition, a crafty little sucker punch of a film that runs for its first hour like an offbeat romantic drama about a man dealing with his midlife crisis by seeking the company of a pretty young woman. However, let's just say that this film has some nasty teeth and isn't After recovering from the death of his beloved wife Yoko,
middle-aged Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) is left to raise his son all alone for
several years. Aoyama discusses his loneliness with his best friend, a movie producer, who suggests an interesting new twist to avoid the complexity of dating rituals. The two men decide to hold an audition for a movie which will actually serve as a method of finding a new wife for Aoyama. The ideal woman should have some kind of artistic talent and a genial nature, qualities which appear in abundance in the form of Asami Yamazaki (Eihi Shiina), a former ballet dancer and aspiring actress. The two tentatively begin a relationship, though her past acquaintances either tell cryptic stories or appear to have vanished completely. And that's just the beginning...
Best known as the director of kinetic, gory The Universe Region 3 DVD of Audition is a nice, affordable presentation of the film. As with many Asian DVD transfers, the black levels are rather bright compared to U.S. discs, so adjust your set accordingly. The stereo soundtrack is relatively inactive during the first half of the film, but the soundtrack becomes more powerful and aggressive during later scenes when chilling noises and musical stings proliferate for atmospheric effect. The Japanese dialogue is presented with optional Chinese or English subtitles, which are grammatically awkward at times but get the meaning across well enough. The disc also includes a trailer loaded with spoilers, in Japanese with Chinese subtitles.
In the mountainous province of Yunnan, young corporate representative Wada (Motoki) travels by train on a business trip to investigate a newly discovered vein of jade. Along the way he's joined by an ill-tempered mobster, Ujiie (Miike regular Ishibashi), who represents the company's
debt to his crime cohorts and is ill-prepared to contend with the forbidding region. Their guide, Shen (Conan the Barbarian's Mako) leads them through threatening foliage, hallucinogenic mushrooms and volatile weather to the village where a beautiful schoolteacher (Wang) instructs her pupils in the art of making wings to fly like birds.
Never one to conform to expectations, director Miike helmed this stab at magic realism between his first breakthrough film, Fudoh, and his subsequent gorefests like Dead or Alive. Completely devoid of violence or sensationalistic material, this thoughtful study in man's relationship with the world comes off more like a Japanese spin 
on Local Hero by way of Werner Herzog. The increasingly fantastic nature of the material is well established in the second hour, which convincingly sketches events bordering on the mythic in a calm, subdued manner that pays off in the beautiful closing minutes. The yakuza presence keeps Bird People in China (Chûgoku no chôjin) from stepping completely out of line with expectations, but it'still a wholly unexpected experience based on the rest of his work available in the West. Aside from a few profane epithets, this is a Miike fan that even the most sensitive viewers can enjoy.
One of the more difficult Miike films to find in English, Bird People in China gets a much-needed special edition courtesy of Artsmagic. Previous editions from Japan and Korea suffered from lack of subtitles and dodgy transfers respectively, so this version is the one to get. Bathed in dreamy green and gray hues, the cinematography looks fine here 
despite the inherent softness in much of the photography. Agitator author Tom Mes contributes a solid, Dutch-accented commentary track in which he explores the film's common threads with Miike's other films, its reflections of the culture it intends to explore, and the various symbolic tropes running through the story.
Video extras kick off with another colorful Miike interview in which the director (who seems to be suffering from a cold) talks about the difficulties in getting the production off the ground (so to speak), the challenges imposed by the terrain during shooting, and his impressions of the tightly-budgeted final result ("I think I shot that film like a man with a fever"). Other goodies include the original Japanese trailer (with optional English subtitles), a promotional gallery, previews for the three films in Miike's Black Society Trilogy, and lyrics and notes on the song "Anne Laurie," which plays a pivotal role in the film.
After toiling on a series of fairly anonymous straight-to-video projects, cult director Takashi Miike garnered a degree of attention with his first truly authorial series of films, a loosely connected thematic triptych dubbed the "Black Society Trilogy." Sort of a stylistic dry run for his more frenetic Dead or Alive trilogy, these darker, more realistic films offer standard crime storylines infused with the director's incredible knack for violent, showy setpieces.
style to keep any possibly offended parties from turning away. The more extreme bits are doled out in sparing doses compared to the barrage on display in, say, Ichii the Killer; here we have a mood piece that happens to revolve around some deeply sick human beings.
transfers of each film; they look about as good as one could expect given the limited budgets and dodgy source material. Furthermore, the cinematography for these films uses a great deal of heavy, inky black to suffuse the screen, though it's a credit to the transfers that digital problems are kept to a surprising minimum. The stereo soundtracks don't offer a huge amount of flashy separation effects but sound fine; the optional English subtitles are well-written and occupy a nice balance between reader friendliness and cultural explanation.
An upbeat musical from prolific Japanese shockmaster Takashi Miike might seem wholly absurd, at least until you figure in all the dancing corpses, experimental claymation and escalating body count. A pitch black comedy ideally suited for midnight movie viewings, Happiness of the Katakuris (Katakuri-ke no kôfuku) is a loving and utterly insane salute to Japanese pop kitsch, zombie horror romps, and avant garde animation. If that sounds like a bizarre stew, well, wait until you see the actual movie.
Cult movie fans lucky enough to stumble upon Katakuris should find enough to enjoy from Miike's visuals alone: the Brothers Quay-inspired opening involving soup and a torn epiglottis, a Thriller-inspired dance sequence involving funky undead strutters, a riotous Karaoke interlude, and best of all, Richard and Shizue's "I love you" musical centerpiece which transforms into a Moulin Rouge-style riot of color and design. Fortunately there's enough of a plot to back up the schizoid shifts in tone, with some wonderfully clever dialogue included to keep the brain occupied even while the eyes are overloaded. Richard gets most of the funniest bits, including a soliloquy involving his royal heritage and his relationship to the late Lady Di that should go down in the camp cinema history books. Not to be missed.
than the HK disc. The disc comes loaded with extras including the usual Chimera trailers and a 61-minute documentary, "White Lovers' Guest House," which focuses primarily on the rehearsals and execution of the various musical numbers along with peeks at the costuming process and the staging of the frenetic climax. Miike also appears for a 33-minute interview at a sound mixing board, discussing the film's status as a Japanese "New Year" film (see the liner notes by Patrick Macias for more info on this subgenre) and his approach to pulling off such a technically audacious, non-commercial project. On top of that, Miike also contributes a feature-length audio commentary, in original Japanese on one track or with an English translator on a third audio track. Much of the information is expanded or rephrased from Miike's other appearances on the disc, but he also offers several new nuggets of information including some notes about how the film registers within his amazing, highly diverse body of work. The packaging indicates TV spots for the film, but none appear to be included. Not easily forgotten, this is "family viewing" of the oddest, goofiest kind.
Following the atypical Audition, the obscenely prolific Takashi Miike returned to the stomping grounds of his classic crime favorites (Fudoh, Dead or Alive) with City of Lost Souls (Hyôryuu-gai), his take on the familiar criminal-lovers-on-the-run subgenre. Of course, this being a Miike film, that also means spastic editing, outrageous violence, and enough energy to fuel a dozen American action knockoffs.
the occasional bad taste hiccup like a man's face plunged into a bloody toilet. The focus here is on action, pure and simple, with lots of macho gun-toting, pursuits, double crosses, and international intrigue to keep the proceedings speedy even when they don't always quite make sense. None of the characters are really sympathetic, but Miike does manage to pull off an effective love story nonetheless which at least makes one wish the couple would steer away from their rollercoaster ride straight to hell.
Western NTSC standards with dead-on black levels. The explosive 5.1 soundtrack keeps the rear channels active through most of the running time (dig those opening credits!). Also included are detailed liner notes by the Cinematheque's Chris D. (in which he places the film in context both as Hong Kong entertainment and Miike's stab at film noir), a reel of rough behind-the-scenes footage showing Miike at work during three of the action sequences, a demo of the video game Escape from Tokyo, and a huge array of alternate trailers and TV spots, with additional trailers for other titles in the series like Black Rose Mansion. Incidentally, the DVD kicks off with the full red-band U.S. trailer for Audition before the menu screen, so prepare to settle back for a few minutes.
afraid to bite its
viewers, so those with strong stomachs should simply seek out this astonishing film without any further description. However, here's a taste of the initial premise.
action fare like
Fudoh: The New Generation and Dead or Alive, Takashi Miike
restrains himself somewhat by confining the graphic horrors to the final act of this film, which laces most of its chills through the rest of the running time with quick, subtle shivers that pass by almost unnoticed. In particular, one beautifully executed scene involves Asami sitting in the foreground listening to a ringing telephone while something very sinister happens in the background.
Acting, direction, and photography are all first rate, and the story expertly pulls the rug out from under the audience several times, deftly moving back and forth between reality and illusion as the narrative glides towards its grisly, inevitable resolution. Watch this one at night, and prepare to be seriously rattled.
