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.
