Chainsaw Day: Chain Reactions

Roger Ebert famously gave The Texas Chainsaw Massacre only two out of four stars. Yet, he conceded the quality of the performances and productions values might surprise viewers, “not, however, that you’d necessarily enjoy seeing it.” Ebert was hardly alone. At the time, Tobe Hooper’s career-making film was decidedly divisive amongst critics. Unfortunately, viewers really do not get a sense of that diversity of opinion in Alexandre O. Philippe’s Chainsaw Reactions, which has a special nationwide “Texas Chainsaw Day” screening this Monday, along with the 1974 film it documents.

Fifty years and change later, everyone involved with Philippe’s doc takes it as a given that Hooper’s film is a classic. Again, he uses an approach like that of Lynch/Oz, essentially presenting extended critical analysis from five experts/critics/fans, while showing evocative clips from the film. Fortunately, these five waxers-poetic repeat themselves far less than the cast of Lynch/Oz did. However, the lineup of Patton Oswalt, Takashi Miike, Australian film critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Stephen King, and Karyn Kusama will not appeal to all fans equally, to put it diplomatically.

Still, listening to Miike and King discuss anything horror related will be an opportunity few fans would want to pass up. Miike’s perspective is particularly notable, explaining Texas Chainsaw’s reception in Japan and tracing its influence on some of his more extreme films, like Ichi the Killer. King also has some worthy contributions, but he never mentions Hooper’s Salem’s Lot, which remains one of the best King adaptations of all time.

Annoyingly, many of the fab-ish five still reflect the same general perspective, especially when trying to score polemical points with respects to the alleged rising level of violence permeating American society. However, the film would have benefited from the more nuanced analysis of Joseph Lanza writing in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Film that Terrified a Rattled Nation, which situates the film within the context of late-1960s and early-1970s violence, definitely including the New Left-adjacent Manson Family Murders, which go unmentioned in Reactions.

Japan Cuts ’21: The Great Yokai War—Guardians

He is a cult favorite among kaiju enthusiasts, but he is relatively under-represented on screen. There is his original 1966 film trilogy and his 2010 reboot series, but mighty Daimajin never had to duel it out with Gamera or Rodan. Takashi Miike partly rights that wrong by pitting him against a ticked-off collective of yokai (mythical Japanese spirits and demons) in The Great Yokai War: Guardians, which screens again the old-fashioned way during the 2021 Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film, at the Japan Society.

You need no familiarity with Miike’s The Great Yokai War of 2005 to fully enjoy Guardians, just an appreciation of the various traditional yokai. Many of those mythical entities apparently originated in the Fossa Magna rift and they have melded themselves into giant “Yokaiju” ball with the intention of barreling back into the sea. The problem is Tokyo is right smack dab in its path. In addition to causing horrendous destruction, it would release a primordial monster currently held in stasis beneath the city. Everyone coyly refers to it as “you-know-who,” clearly implying he is a big-name kaiju, whom Miike and the Kadokawa could not acquire the usage rights.

Frankly, some of the yokai are inclined to watch the world burn, but others would rather save it. To do so, they need to recruit a descendant of legendary samurai Watanabe no Tsuna to sacrifice himself to the mighty Daimajin. Scaredy-cat Kei Watanabe is not inclined to step up when they pull him into their parallel fairy world, but he gins up his courage to save his younger brother Dai, after he is tricked into being a replacement.

The Yokai (including outliers the Yeti, Cyclops, and Frankenstein Monster) are wonderfully bizarre and often gleefully over-the-top, but the kiddie melodrama can be more than a little too whiny and neurotic. Miike often has trouble establishing the right tone for his “family films,” like Ninja Kids!!!, but it is especially true here.

Takashi Miike’s First Love

These are Takashi Miike’s kind of people. They live extreme, nocturnal lives on the margins of respectable society. They are Yakuza, Triads, pimps, prostitutes, and crooked cops. Many of them will not live through the night. It will be gangster vs. gangster vs. outcast in Miike’s First Love, which opens this Friday in New York.

Leo is a talented but passionless boxer, who was quite surprised to get TKO-ed by a flukey punch. Sadly, it turns out his knock-out was the result of an inoperable brain tumor. While mulling over this depressing news, he stumbles across young woman in need of saving, so he does.

Yuri, now known as “Monica” was sold into prostitution by her abusive father. Her pimp deliberately hooked her on smack to keep her docile. That would be her late pimp, a victim of the gang war the ambitious but dumb as a post Kase has instigated between his Yakuza clan and the invading Triads, so he can redirect a considerable shipment of heroin during the ensuing mayhem. It certainly does ensue. Unfortunately for him, he is too successful, igniting an underworld battle royale. Soon, vengeful prostitutes and corrupt coppers join the fray. Yet, somehow, Leo does whatever it takes to keep Monica alive, because he has nothing to lose.

Sitges ’18: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure—Diamond is Unbreakable

Josuke (Jojo) Higashikata is a lot like Fonzie. He has the hair, but he can easily top Fonzarelli’s finger snap. Jojo smashes things up and then put them back together again with the help of his avatar-like “stand.” “Stand-wielding” is similar to the powers of the secret sub-species in the manga-based films Ajin: Demi-Human and Tokyo Ghoul, but Jojo’s franchise got there first, predating the other two by twenty-some years. Genre auteur Takashi Miike finally gives the series the live-action treatment in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Sitges Film Festival.

Jojo is the big man on campus in the fictional seaside town of Morioh. The powers of his stand certainly help, but it is mostly due to his hair. He certainly makes quite an impression on starry-eyed transfer student Koichi Hirose. In fact, he hardly notices his assigned study partner, Yukako Yamagishi, which shows highly questionable priorities.

Regardless, Hirose often happens to be around when Jojo uses his powers, but it is all an impossible blur to make out for anyone who is not a stand-user themselves. As it happens, there are many stand-users in town, including Jojo’s long lost nephew (who is old enough to be his uncle) Jotaro Kujo. In their case, stand-wielding is a family thing. However, the sinister Keicho Nijimura has a bow-and-arrow that converts average civilians into stand-wielders. Angelo Katagiri has been recently turned, but he already feels like he has a grudge to settle with Jojo and his family.

In many ways, Bizarre Adventure follows a roughly similar narrative to Ajin: Demi-Human and Tokyo Ghoul, but, on one hand, the stakes are considerably lower, while on the other, Jojo’s characters are much more fully fleshed out. It is rather amusing to watch Kento Yamazaki strut about as Jojo, making like everything makes perfect sense. He also develops some sweet and ultimately rather poignant chemistry with his police officer grandfather, Ryohei Higashikata, played with genuine warmth and dignity by Jun Kunimura.

Ryunosuke Kamiki’s Hirose is so appealingly earnest and guileless, it is hard to believe he is a teenager. Nana Komatsu is sadly under-utilized as Yamagishi, but the closing scenes coyly imply she will have a larger role to play in a promised sequel. Takayuki Yamada gets his creepy Doug Jones on as Katagiri, but Masaki Okada’s Nijimura is a bit bland for a stand-wielding super-villain.

Kunimura and Yamazaki are nice together, but much of the “Bizarre” narrative feels familiar. Still, Miike ushers us into a compelling fantasy world—very much like our own, but different in strange and idiosyncratic ways. Recommended for established Miike and Jojo fans, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable screens this Friday (10/12), during Sitges.

Takashi Miike’s Ichi the Killer

As a culture, we get de-sensitized to shock and outrage remarkably quickly. In its day, the mere mention of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer was sufficient to cause nannies and small animals to run away in fright. Now it seems relatively mainstream. That’s not true for Ichi. Sixteen years after they handed out promotional vomit bags for its TIFF screens, the notorious film still feels pretty extreme. Without question, there will be blood and other bodily fluids when Takashi Miike’s Ichi the Killer opens this Friday at the Metrograph, in a digitally restored uncensored director’s cut.

The Anjo and Funaki gangs are at war, but it is really the mysterious crime scene cleaner Jijii, who is pulling the strings. His weapon of choice is the luggish looking Ichi, whom he has profoundly warped, both emotionally and sexually, through hypnotic suggestion. Jijii has him convinced the various yakuza he slices up are the bullies who supposedly tormented him in middle school.

The Anjo gang is still reeling from the presumed murder of their boss, but they still have some incredibly lethal killers hunting Ichi. The creepily sadomasochistic and wildly unstable Kakihara represents the new nihilistic breed of yakuza, whereas Takayama gruffly holds up old school values, as does his recruit, Kaneko, a disgraced former policeman.

ITK remains controversial for a reason. There are explicit scenes of sexual violence and torture that pull no punches and go on for a considerable length of time. Again, it makes supposed shockers like Last Tango in Paris and The Human Centipede look like Merchant and Ivory’s garden party.

Yet, ITK still functions as a twisty and intriguing yakuza film. Shun Sugata and Hiroshi Kobayashi are both terrific as Takayama and Kaneko. There is something deeply compelling about them, as they try to navigate a world that has lost its sanity and sense of decency. On the other hand, Tadanobu Asano’s portrayal of Kakihara is a deep dive into perversion and madness like we had never seen from him before and can surely never possibly see again. Plus, Paulyn Sun, a.k.a. Alien Sun, might just be the fiercest femme fatale ever, who meets an exceptionally brutal end (seriously, how many times do we need to warn sensitive viewers out there?). Perhaps the weakest link is actually Nao Ohmori as the emotionally stunted Ichi. Whenever he enters the picture, we can’t wait for him to exit, for a whole host of reasons.

On some level, it is reassuring that Ichi the Killer still has the power to shock us. Of course, it is supposed to be shocking. Violence never looked less glamorous. That is the whole point and boy, do we get it. Be that as it may, it remains dashed difficult to defend Miike’s ultra-outré-violence on aesthetic grounds, but anyone who is seriously interested in his extraordinarily diverse and prolific body of work has to deal with it at some point. Recommended for curious patrons of extreme cult films, Ichi the Killer opens this Friday (11/10) in New York, at the Metrograph.

Takashi Miike’s Blade of the Immortal

Let’s run the numbers on this one. By his count, this is Takashi Miike’s 100^th film. Our anti-hero, Manji, is known as the “Killer of 100,” for reasons that need no belaboring, but he has pledged to kill 1,000 bad guys to redeem himself. It looks like he easily reaches the millennium mark judging from Miike’s live-action adaptation of Hiroaki Samura’s popular manga series, maybe by a factor of two or three. The body count is higher than an October’s worth of horror films, but each hack-and-slash death is executed with Miike’s incomparable artistry in Blade of the Immortal (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Ill-fated Manji was caught up in a Shogunate power struggle and forced to kill his own brother-in-law. He tried to care for his younger sister Machi after grief drove her mad, despite their fugitive status. Tragically, the smugly confident leader of a small army of bounty-hunters kills her before his very eyes, but that turns out extraordinarily badly for them. Of course, he kills every last one of them, but it nearly costs him his life, which would have been fine with Manji. Instead, the supernaturally old nun Yaobikuni slips mystically healing bloodworms into body, rendering him immortal.

After Rin Asano’s sensei father is killed by Kagehisa Anotsu’s Ittō-ryū martial arts cult, Yaobikuni appears before her, recommending she seek out Manji to serve as her bodyguard. The immortal swordsman is not inclined to be helpful, but he cannot help feeling protective towards Asano, because she is the spitting image of Machi. And away we go.

Frankly, Manji is a perfect Chanbara hero for Miike’s sensibilities. Think of him as one part Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, one part Wolverine, and a third part Larry Talbott from the Universal Wolfman movies. The relationship that develops between him and Asano is deeply compelling so it is easy to understand why the manga has lasted for over a trillion volumes.

Playing against type, Takuya Kimura (a.k.a. Kimutaku of the j-pop band SMAP) is suitably grizzled and embittered as Manji, while Hana Sugisaki is endearingly naïve as Asano. Arguably their relationship dynamics and characters arcs are the only ones that mean anything in a wildly cinematic beat-down movie like this, but Erika Toda still steals all her scenes as the lethal geisha Makie Otonotachibana, who is a better ally than the clammy Anotsu deserves.

Character, performance, and all the rest of that blah-blah-blah are all very nice, but the bloody, massively over-the-top fight sequences are what this film is really all about. It opens with some spectacular payback and ends with an epic, large-scale, all-hands-on-deck, slice-and-dice battle. Let’s put it this way, Miike does not surpass third act battle royale of 13 Assassins, but he comes close to equaling it, which is saying something.

There is no question the final battle is utterly nuts, in multiple ways, but boy, is it ever fun to immerse yourself in. For his 100^th film, Miike was not taking any prisoners or offering any quarter. It is the kind of full-scale chanbara blow-out that is good for what ails you, like 13 Assassins and the Rurouni Kenshin trilogy. Very highly recommended, Blade of the Immortal opens this Friday (11/3) in New York, at the Quad Cinema.

NYAFF ’17: The Mole Song—Hong Kong Capriccio

For years, Japanese Imperialists have been the stand-by villains of every other Chinese movie, so it is about time the Japanese film industry returned the favor. Say what you will, but the Yakuza have standards. Evidently, when yakuza are disavowed by their clans, they often find an outlet for their rage working for the Chinese mafia. Frankly, that is about as much serious cultural analysis you’re ever going to get with Takasi Miike’s latest deliriously mad sequel. The lunacy comes fast and furious as Reiji Kikukawa, the world’s most incompetent undercover cop, keeps infiltrating deeper and deeper into the yakuza hierarchy in Miike’s The Mole Song: Hong Kong Capriccio, which screens during the 2017 New York Asian Film Festival.

Kikukawa was hoping to get extracted and rehabilitated long before now. After all, a bunch of bad guys got busted in The Mole Song: Undercover Agent Reiji. However, it turns out there is another verse to the “Mole Song,” the out of tune ditty used by the trio of senior coppers to give Kikukawa his marching orders (they also hint there is a third verse, so the supernaturally prolific Miike probably finished another Mole Song movie in the time it took you to read this far).

Alas, Kikukawa is a victim of his own success. He is now the #2 man in the Hiura Clan, completely trusted by the bionic boss, Masaya Hiura, a.k.a. “Crazy Papillion.” His access could not get any better when he is chosen to serve as the personal bodyguard of Shuho Todoroki, the boss of the overall Sukiya-Kai clan, who is feeling the heat from the Dragon Skulls, a vicious Chinese gang trying to takeover illicit marketshare in Japan. When the Skulls kidnap Todoroki’s hot but mean daughter Karen, it puts Kikukawa in an awkward spot, but he fortuitously saves the boss himself before having to sacrifice a few body parts. From there, he and Hiura are off to Hong Kong to save Karen from the Skulls’ white slavery auction, where things will really get silly.

Like its predecessor except more so, HK Capriccio is the sort of film that could induce seizures in viewers of a certain age or light sensitivity. The action careens in about a hundred different directions at once, but is frequently interrupted by animated sequences, musical numbers, flashbacks, dream sequences, and just plain randomness. It is a whirlpool of outrageously colorful costumes and back-stabbing shenanigans, not the least bit anchored by the naïve yet somehow often naked Kikukawa.

You have to give the rubber-faced and rubber-boned Toma Ikuta credit. He pretty much lets it all hang out as Kikukawa, taking whatever humiliation, ridicule, or pratfall might be coming his way, like a good soldier. Once again, Shinichi Tsutsumi is superhumanly hardnosed as the hard-charging Papillion. Yet, it is Tsubasa Honda who really escalates the insanity considerably over and above the first film, as the sultry “on wheels” yakuza daughter.

Arguably, HK Capriccio is probably one of the year’s greatest directing feats, because this much bedlam must require a heck of a lot of work. If you enjoyed the first Mole Song, the second chorus is even better. On the other hand, if you just didn’t get the prior Agent Reiji than you’re pretty much on your own here. Highly recommended for Miike fans, The Mole Song: Hong Kong Capriccio screens Friday (7/14), at the SVA Theatre, as part of this year’s NYAFF.

Miike’s Yakuza Apocalypse

Yakuza and vampires depend on carefully balanced ecosystems that are not so different from Social Security. There absolutely must be more people bleeding money and plasma into the system than sucking it out. Due to his inexperience, a freshly turned Yakuza vampire threatens to upset the long term equilibrium, but he will have more pressing concerns when three agents of doomsday start wreaking cosmic havoc in Takashi Miike’s Yakuza Apocalypse (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Genyō Kamiura is a benevolent Yakuza boss and a vampire, who refuses to drink civilian blood, even though it is sweeter and more nourishing than the bitter swill running through Yakuza veins. He has taken earnest Akira Kageyama under his wing, even though the lad’s skin is too sensitive to tattoo. They see eye to eye when it comes to giving civilians a fair shake, so when Kamiura is fatally jumped by Kyoken, a martial arts maniac and his boss, a Spanish priest carrying a disintegration ray in a casket, the last thing his severed head does is turn Kageyama into a vampire. Unfortunately, the unprepared Kageyama then accidentally turns a civilian, who immediately turns another, and so on. Soon nearly the entire town consists of vampires sporting supernatural Yakuza tats.

Obviously things are a mess, but they will only get worse with the arrival of the third representative of the cosmic syndicate. Kaeru-kun might look like a guy in a fuzzy green frog costume, but he is as lethal as the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. What part of this being a Miike film didn’t you get?

Yakupoc has been dismissed as a Miike greatest hits package and there is a kernel of truth in that. One might have thought he worked through all his Django riffs in Sukiyaki Western Django, but apparently not. However, Miike is such a gleefully kitchen sink kind of filmmaker he constantly throws in inspired bits where you least expect them. Indeed, the audience’s introduction to Kamiura, in which a small army of earthly Yakuza learn the folly of trying to whack a vampire is truly vintage Miike. There are also a number of wonderfully droll lines sprinkled throughout the film and without question, it features some of the best fight choreography ever conceived for a dude in a downy soft animal costume.

Hayato Ichihara is shockingly engaging portraying Kageyama’s maturation process from awestruck henchman to hardnosed vampire. Largely playing against his usual hound dog type, Lily Franky is off the hook awesome as Kamiura. Unfortunately, Yayan Ruhian (the unrelated Mad Dogs in the Raid films) does have much of a character to work with in Kyoken, or much room to chew scenery. At least he still has all kinds of moves. The rest of the Yakuza underlings largely blur together.

When Miike is working in his chaotic one-upsman bag, his films are sort of like the weather. If it isn’t working for you, just wait ten minutes and it will change. Yet, even it clicks in fits and starts, it is exhilarating to watch him embrace the bedlam. His prolific work ethic is also pretty darn impressive. Recommended for Miike fans, but maybe not the best starter film for the uninitiated, Yakuza Apocalypse opens tomorrow (10/9) in New York, at the Village East.

Stanley ’15: Over Your Dead Body

If you are playing the part of an unfaithful lover who meets a grisly supernatural end opposite your real life lover, it is bad karma to betray her off-stage, especially if she arranged the gig for you. Unfortunately, Kousuke Hasegawa is exactly that sort of cad. Life will duly imitate art in Takashi Miike’s Over Your Dead Body (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Stanley Film Festival.

Hasegawa and Miyuki Goto have the leads in the classical macabre kabuki drama Yotsuya Kaidan, adapted for the screen many times, including as Nobou Nakagawa’s pretty awesome The Ghost Story of Yotsuya. As the cast rehearses, a great deal as meta-ness unfolds backstage. Like his character, the sociopathic ronin Tamiya Iemon, Hasegawa is cheating on Goto (cast as the tragically trusting Iwa) with the younger actress playing her younger on-stage rival, Ume.

Iemon will do cruel and evil things to destroy Iwa to be with Ume. In ostensive real life, Hasegawa is maybe not as proactively duplicitous, but he clearly has no regard for Goto’s feelings. However, there are ominous portents of a malevolent force afoot. Eventually, even Hasegawa starts to pick up on the bad vibes.

Despite the bring-it-on title, OYDB is a remarkably restrained horror film, especially from a master of mayhem like Miike. In truth, it represents a return to the austere elegance displayed in his moody Jidaigeki tragedy Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai. That might disappoint the faithful at the Stanley, but it certainly constitutes distinctive filmmaking.

Indeed, the play within the film would be well worth seeing in its own right. Watching the massive sets created by co-art directors Yuji Hayashida and Eri Sakushima rotating on and off the stage is quite an impressive sight. There is also a really creepy doll used as a surrogate for the play’s infant. Frankly, it is surprisingly easy to get caught up in Iwa and Iemon’s story.

Kô Shibasaki scores a knockout punch as Goto, coming undone like Glen Close in Fatal Attraction, but with far greater subtlety. Likewise, well-regarded kabuki actor Ebizô Ichikawa is appropriately reptilian as Hasegawa and Hasegawa in the role of Iemon. There is a cast of dozens on the set within the film. Yet, only Miho Nakanishi gets much screen time of substance, but when her entitled Ume gets caught up in Iwa’s wrath, it is a great scene.

Miike has probably already made ten films since wrapping OYDB, but it would be an awful shame if it was lost in the shuffle. It is one of the most darkly sophisticated life-parallels-art films you will see, easily putting to shame Polanski’s overhyped Venus in Fur and the very odd but well-intentioned 1915. Highly recommended, Over Your Dead Body screens tomorrow (5/2) and Sunday (5/3) as part of this year’s Stanley Film Festival.

Japan Cuts ’14 & NYAFF ’14: The Mole Song—Undercover Agent Reiji

Yakuzas do not sing, but they should be able to tell jokes. However, theme songs are a handy way to ensure undercover cops always remember their principles. I mean obviously, right? These are about the only rules that apply during The Mole Song: Undercover Agent Reiji (trailer here), Takashi Miike’s manic adaptation of the hit manga series, which screens as a co-programmed selection of the 2014 Japan Cuts and New York Asian Film Festival.

Reiji Kikukawa is the lowest scoring patrolmen to somehow graduate from the police academy. Basically, he is an idiot, so who would suspect him of being a deep cover narc? After trying to bust a pervy city councilman, Kikukawa is summarily fired and then wink-wink rehired to infiltrate the feared Sukiya-kai clan. Kikukawa’s ultimate target is the elusive boss Shuho Todoroki, but for reasons that would not make sense to explain, the #2, Masaya Hiura (a.k.a. Crazy Papillion) quickly takes Kikukawa under his wing.

Kikukawa also takes a shine to Hiura because of the yakuza’s unyielding stand against drug trafficking. Unfortunately, someone within the organization is not so principled. Kikukawa soon feels rather confused and abandoned. Much to his frustration, being a gangster also complicates his awkward attempts to put the moves on his cute former colleague, Junna Wakagi.

Periodically, Kikukawa experiences flashbacks of his superior officers singing “The Mole Song,” which is a crime in itself. However, that sort of shameless lunacy is right in Miike’s power alley. Mole Song makes the original Police Academy look like a Noel Coward drawing room comedy. No gag is too slapsticky and no humiliation is too unlikely to inflict on Kikukawa.

Yet, he keeps plugging away, because Mole Song also has heart. You have to hand it to Toma Ikuta’s Kikukawa—there is nothing he will not do for a laugh—starting with being strapped naked spread eagle to the hood of a speeding car. Literally, that is where Miike starts. Kenta Kurokawa and Itsei Nekozawa also make quite a strong impression as feline-themed yakuza assassins, who look like CATS chorus members on crystal meth.

Riisa Naka does her level best to provide some grounding as the decent Wakagi, but she is fighting a losing battle. However, Shinichi Tsutsumi (who also plays a bonkers yakuza in Sion Sono’s Why Don’t You Play in Hell?) largely steals the show as the indomitably hardnosed Miura.

Miike seems to be having a ball trying out nutty ideas throughout Mole Song and the fun is contagious. Frankly, it is rather impressive how many of the bits successfully land. Recommended for those who want to see a madcap cartoon with live people, Mole Song: Undercover Agent Reiji screens tomorrow (7/10) at the Japan Society, as the opening film of this Year’s Japan Cuts: the New York Festival of Contemporary Japanese Film, co-presented by NYAFF.

Takashi Miike’s Hara-Kiri

Honor is not simply a matter of ritual and technicality.  However, samurai who have only known peace seem to have a tendency to forget the heart and spirit of their code.  A ronin with a mysterious grievance intends to teach a noble house’s conceited retainers a hard lesson in Takeshi Miike’s Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (trailer here), now available on DVD and BluRay from New Video Group.

Yes, there is peace, but the Shogun’s devious maneuverings destroyed a once proud clan, leaving a glut of impoverished ronin (masterless samurai) at loose ends.  The situation has given rise to a phenomenon known as “suicide bluffs,” where ronin ask for the use of the House of Ii’s courtyard to commit ritual seppuku in hopes they might receive a few coins and be sent on their way instead.  Hanshirô Tsugumo has asked duly asked for such a favor from the head retainer Kageyu Saitou, but he seems to have his own agenda.

Hoping to dissuade him, Saitou tells him the pathetic story of the last ronin who came cold calling.  Tired of indulging suicide bluffs, Saitou’s arrogant lieutenants forced the desperate young man to follow-through on his threat, in what quickly becomes a horrific display bearing little resemblance to any notion of honor.  As it happens, Tsugumo already knows the gist of this tale.  In fact, he is well acquainted with the sad young Motome Chiziiwa, as viewers learn in the next series of flashbacks.

Based on the novel famously adapted by Masaki Kobayashi in 1962, Miike’s film is not called Hara-Kiri for no reason.  About the first masterfully tense quarter is largely dedicated to Chiziiwa’s involuntary disembowelment.  While the middle section somewhat suffers in comparison, Miike nonetheless provides all the necessary context to appreciate the first and third acts and fully establishes his central characters as sympathetic, flesh-and-blood figures, particularly Miho, the frail woman linking the two ronin together.

Indeed, Hikari Mitsushima is deeply affecting as the ill-fated (who isn’t in a Miike film?) Miho, a character lightyears removed from the all kinds of scary schoolgirl-cultist she brought to life in Sion Sono’s Love Exposure.  Likewise, Eita is an aching model of pathos as Chiziiwa.  However, Hara-Kiri really belongs to the two steely-eyed old dogs circling each other right from the beginning.

Traditional kabuki actor Ebizo Ichikawa (or Ebizo IX) appropriately simmers and seethes like a seriously hard-nosed, world weary swordsman with a point to make.  He is the real deal, commanding every scene he appears in, which is quite the trick considering he is paired up against Kôji Yakusho, the international paragon of middle-aged badness, as Saitou.  Once again, Yakusho brings gravitas and a sense of ruthlessness to the proceedings.  While not nearly as crowd-pleasing as his lead role in Miike’s hit 13 Assassins, he makes the most of it.

Where Assassins delivers the hack-and-slash, Hara-Kiri offers foreboding and tragedy.  Frankly, the latter was far truer to the heroics of the Samurai era, which Ivan Morris described as the “nobility of failure.”  However, the awesomely action-driven Assassins would have been a more logical candidate to be Miike’s first 3D film, yet that distinction belongs to Hara-Kiri.  Regardless, it translates to 2D viewing just fine.  A stately period production that is amply rewarding on multiple levels, Hara-Kiri is highly recommended for fans of samurai films and historical dramas in general.  It is available at all online retailers from New Video Group.

Miike Did It First: Sukiyaki Western Django

You would think from the critical response Tarantino practically invented both Spaghetti westerns and blaxploitation in Django Unchained.  Yet, he is hardly the first director to pay tribute to Corbucci’s Django.  Takeshi Miike staked out some pretty eccentric homage territory first with Sukiyaki Western Django (trailer here), a film Tarantino must be aware of, since he appears in it.  In fact, he stinks up the joint with an excruciatingly shticky too-big-to-be-a-cameo supporting turn.  Perhaps that is why his amen chorus has doggedly ignored such an obvious comparison film.  We don’t play favorites here, especially when Miike’s flawed SWD is so doggone interesting and readily available on DVD.

Throughout SWD, Miike cranks up the action somewhere between a cartoon and a video game, with stuff flying through the air and characters occasionally blowing holes through each other big enough to stick your arm through.  Hideaki Ito is the archetypal man with no name, who swaggers into town, finding his skills sought after by the rival Genji (white) and Heike (red) clans—essentially returning A Fistful of Dollars back to its Yojimbo roots.  Listening to offers but staying non-committal, the gunslinger cools his heels at the Soba house run by Ruriki.  For the record, a Gatling gun does indeed turn up.

Red and white briefly mixed to pink when Ruriki’s son married Shizuka.  However, when her husband was killed by his own clan, Shizuka took dubious refuge with the Genji, where she most definitely catches the lone gunslinger’s eye.  While SWD is mostly a testosterone driven action movie, its most interesting performances come from women.  Yoshino Kimura is both seductive and emotionally nuanced as “the temptress” Shizuka.  Kaori Momoi (previously seen it films like Memoirs of a Geisha and Kurosawa’s Kagemusha) steals the show as Ruriki, who turns out to be more of an action hero than the wooden gunslinger.

Some of the men do not fare so well, from an aesthetic perspective.  Shocking absolutely nobody, the worst performance comes from Quentin Tarantino, who seems convinced audiences want to see he camp it up and go completely over the top.  We don’t.  This is totally annoying Destiny Turns on the Radio Tarantino, not the somewhat sufferable Pulp Fiction Tarantino.  When he is on-screen, things come to a screeching halt—quite an achievement given the hyper-kinetic energy Miike infuses into the proceedings.

Miike goes for whacked-out gonzo action and largely succeeds, thanks to the ultra-cool Momoi and a dance number from Kimura that alone is worth the price of admission.  However, the film has a mean streak that somewhat dampens enthusiasm.  Cruelty and physical humor go hand-in-hand in SWD, and often makes an uneasy fit, just as in Unchained.  It has wild look (including some costumes that would not have been out of place in a Liberace stage show) and a bizarre vibe, partly due to the actors’ deliberately unnatural sounding phonetic English.  An occasional subtitle might have helped.

Takashi Miike is the ultimate cult director, so SWD should be red meat for his fans.  The rest of us mere mortals will likely to find it wildly uneven, but never dull.  It would be about on par with Django Unchained were it not for . . . Tarantino.  Recommended for Miike admirers and those who sorely in need of perspective on Unchained, Sukiyaki Western Django is available on DVD from most online retailers.

NYICFF ’12: Ninja Kids!!!

Rantaro’s folks are like most parents. They only want a better life for their son. They just think it will involve bombs and darts. To that end, the first grader is trundled off to a sort of Hogwarts for the deadly martial arts in Takashi Miike’s Ninja Kids!!! (trailer here), which screens during the upcoming 2012 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

The mere thought of a Miike film at a children’s film fest might sound distressingly wrong to those familiar with his more notorious films, like Audition. Nonetheless, Ninja Kids, based on a popular anime and manga series, really is quite kid friendly, while still being manic enough to satisfy the director’s cult following.

Rantaro supposedly comes from a long line of low-ranked ninjas. However, farming is the only work he has ever seen his father do. At considerable financial sacrifice, his parents are sending him to Ninja Academy, so he can make something of himself. The bespectacled young boy hardly looks imposing, but he is one of the better students in the problematic “Ha” class. He is smart and has heart, which is the most important thing according to the old and silly, yet still comically spry headmaster. As it happens, he will need those traits when the first graders become entangled in a Ninja power struggle.

It is a good thing kids have soft bones. Frankly, viewers will worry more about the old-timers Miike tosses around like rag dolls. It never leads to permanent damage though, at least on screen. To give parents an idea of the mayhem involved, when a character is hit in the head with a cannon ball, he just staggers about woozily. If you prize slapstick humor (and what’s not to like?), than Ninja Kids is your Citizen Kane.

Not that it really matters, but Yoshio Urasawa’s adapted screenplay is a bit thin, never really developing the rivalry with the Usetake clan. Of course, this is hardly a plot driven film. It is all about its young characters and cartoony gags. Fortunately, Seishirô Katô plays Rantaro with a winning charm and a toothy grin the camera loves. Hugely likable but never cloying, it is impossible not to buy into him.

Both kids and cult film enthusiasts should eat up Ninja Kids’ lunacy with a big spoon. It also celebrates the value of courage and teamwork in terms that should mollify stick-in-the-mud parents. Recommended as a high-energy crowd pleaser, Ninja Kids!!! (with three exclamation points) screens this Saturday (3/3) at the Cantor Film Center and Saturday the 24th at the Asia Society as part of this year’s NYICFF.

Miike’s 13 Assassins

Times of tranquility make samurai weak and flabby. This is not the case for battle-hardened veterans the previous era. To preserve the peace, thirteen old school men-of-arms take on an army of two hundred soldiers. Pray for the two hundred. They are going to need it in Takashi Miike’s samurai spectacle 13 Assassins (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Lord Naritsugu Matsudaira is a sadist, pure and simple. He is also the shogun’s illegitimate brother, who shall shortly be announced as his successor. After witnessing the suffering wrought by Matsudaira’s brutality, the wily old samurai Shinzaemon Shimada agrees to fix the problem permanently, fully understanding one way or another, it will be his battle. Naturally, he assembles his team in proper Dirty Dozen fashion, recruiting colorful ronin and disaffected samurai who are not particularly worried about the future. They might not make samurai like they used to, but Shimada will have a worthy opponent in his old colleague Hanbei. Though repulsed by his behavior, Hanbei believes he is honor-bound to defend Matsudaira to preserve the rule of law. And so it begins.

Aside from the shocking early scenes of Matsudaira’s handiwork, Assassins is not at all what one might expect from the director of Audition. Remaking Eiichi Kudo’s 1963 film of the same title, Miike is surprisingly traditional in his approach. However, he delivers the hack-and-slash goods in spades. Culminating in an awe-inspiring forty-five minute hand-to-hand battle sequence, Assassins generates a monster of a body count, without ever flagging or repeating itself. Steadily increasing the intensity, Assassins concludes with a moment of perfect Jadaigeki genre purity. Beyond fanboy fare, this is technically accomplished, bravura filmmaking, with some incredible sets designed (to be subsequently destroyed) by art director Yuji Hayashida.

Like an Edo-era Clint Eastwood, Koji Yakusho brings steely-eyed gravitas to the proceedings as the grizzled Shimada. Yet, he still has ample credibility swinging the samurai sword. Indeed, Yakusho makes Assassins work on a dramatic level every step of the way. Conversely, former J-popper Gorô Inagaki is about as unsettling and downright chill-inducing villain to slither across movie screens in decades.

13 Assassins will remind Japanese cinema aficionados of everything they ever loved about the great Jadaigeki costumed action epics. From the grit and grime of combat to the lofty macro themes of duty and sacrifice, Miike demonstrates a complete mastery of the Samurai movie package. Recommended far and wide, it opens this Friday (4/29) in New York at the IFC Center.

It is also worth noting Miike was scheduled to attend a Film Society of Lincoln Center retrospective in March, but was forced to cancel after the earthquake and tsunami rocked Japan. While the current mis-administration could only be bothered to respond to this crisis with a brief spot of nuclear fear-mongering before returning to more pressing matters (like the NCAA tournament), private citizens can support our Japanese friends and allies by contributing to the Red Cross here or the Japan Society’s relief fund here.

Working Comic Con: R.W. Goodwin & Takasi Miike

It is not just for comic books anymore. If you are releasing a genre picture, NY Comic Con is practically Cannes and Sundance combined. Filmmakers and studios are working the show hard, building media events around it. R.W. Goodwin and Takashi Miike are two such directors in town for Comic Con this weekend.

Goodwin is best-known for his long stint on The X-Files as a co-executive producer and sometimes director. After five seasons, when the show relocated from rainy Vancouver to sunny Los Angeles, Goodwin stayed behind, bowing out before the Files jumped the shark. Now he returns to the flying saucer genre with Alien Trespass (trailer here).

Trespass officially opens April 3rd, so look for the review then. Simply comparing it to the Files, it is much lighter in tone than most of the episodes Goodwin directed, which tended to advance the overarching storyline or so-called mythology. It would be closely akin to the satirical episodes produced during Goodwin’s tenure, like the Roshomon­-esque “Bad Blood” or the self-referential spoof “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space,” guest-starring Charles Nelson Reilly as a Truman Capote figure writing a thinly disguised novel about a particular X-File case.

In Trespass, much of the satire involves an elaborate back-story Goodwin and company created to suggest the film is actually a long-lost vintage B-film. Trespass itself has laughs, but is really more about nostalgia for films like The Blob, The Thing, and The War of the Worlds, which might have had hooky effects, but were produced in earnest sincerity. Those who have affection for the genre should check out Goodwin’s Comic Con appearances. He and actor Dan Lauria are doing a Trespass panel on Friday, February 6th from 3:30-4:30pm in room 1A08 and a poster signing from 5-6pm.

Unlike Goodwin, Japanese auteur Takashi Miike is a newcomer to the science fiction genre with Yatterman, which receives its American debut at Comic Con. Known for some fairly violent excursions into the horror and gangster fields, Miike’s last film, Sukiyaki Western Django, was an idiosyncratic re-importation of the spaghetti western back into feudal Japan. It certainly has moments of violence and cruelty, but nothing approaching the infamous torture scene in Audition, most likely his best-known film.

Miike has an undeniable aptitude for disturbing imagery, but his greatest talent is probably his ability to create a sense of mounting dread. In both Audience and his horror thriller One Missed Call (the basis of last year’s American remake), even his exposition is unsettling. It will be interesting to see how his style manifests itself in a SF context. Given his intense cult following, his Con appearances are likely to draw capacity crowds. (However, considering I was somewhat unnerved by the oddness of NY Anime Fest, I’m not sure I’ll make it there.)

Sukiyaki Western Django Comes to Town

After Kurosawa films inspired westerns like The Magnificent Seven and A Fistful of Dollars, there is a certain amount of twisted logic in re-importing the spaghetti western back into Japan. Takashi Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django (trailer here) is that film. Borrowing from Sergio Leone, Sergio Corbuccio, and indirectly Kurosawa, Miike recasts Yojimbo in feudal Japan, using what look like the costumes for a western-themed stage show meant to star Liberace and some of the props from Corbuccio’s original Django.

Miike cranks up the action somewhere between a cartoon and a video game, with stuff flying through the air and characters occasionally blowing holes through each other big enough to stick your arm through. Hideaki Ito is the archetypal man with no name, who swaggers into town, finding his skills sought after by the rival Genji (white) and Heike (red) clans—essentially A Fistful of Dollars rewound back to the feudal Heiji Rebellion. Listening to offers but staying non-committal, the gunslinger cools his heels at the Soba house run by Ruriki.

Red and white briefly mixed to pink when Ruriki’s son married Shizuka. However, when her husband was killed by his own clan, Shizuka took dubious refuge with the Genji, where she most definitely catches the lone gunslinger’s eye. While Sukiyaki is for the most part a testosterone driven action movie, its most interesting performances come from women. Yoshino Kimura is both seductive and emotionally nuanced as “the temptress” Shizuka. Kaori Momoi (previously seen it films like Memoirs of a Geisha and Kurosawa’s Kagemusha) steals the show as Ruriki, who turns out to be more of an action hero than the wooden gunslinger.

Some of the men do not fare so well, from an aesthetic perspective. The worst performance comes from Quentin Tarantino, who seems convinced audiences want to see he camp it up and go completely over the top. We don’t. This is totally annoying Destiny Turns on the Radio Tarantino, not the somewhat sufferable Pulp Fiction Tarantino. Fortunately, it is a relatively small supporting role, because when he is on-screen, things come to a screeching halt—quite an achievement given the hyper-kinetic energy Miike infuses into the proceedings

Miiko goes for whacked-out gonzo action and largely succeeds, thanks to the ultra-cool Momoi and a dance number from Kimura that alone is worth the price of admission. However, the film has a mean streak that somewhat dampens my enthusiasm. Cruelty and physical humor go hand-in-hand in Sukiyaki, and at times it makes an uneasy fit. It has wild look and a bizarre vibe, partly due to the actors’ unnatural sounding phonetic English. An occasional subtitle might have helped.

Takashi Miike is the ultimate cult director, so Sukiyaki should be red meat for his fans. The rest of us mere mortals are likely to find it wildly uneven, but never dull. After successful festival screenings co-presented by NYAFF and the Japan Society, Sukiyaki opens in New York today at the Angelika.