Dead Or Alive

One, Two, Three, Four... GAAAHHHHHHH!!! Dead Or Alive kicks off in a blaze of sex, violence and gastronomic obscenity, tongue firmly in cheek.

By all accounts, DOA was made as a reaction to the studio, who presented the director with two bankable leads, a vehicle for a commercial franchise and told him to drive it wherever he wanted. A dangerous thing to do when your director is Takashi Miike. Miike, being the enfant terrible he is, has made a grotesque parody of a gangland drama, gleefully outdoing himself scene after scene. One pungently corporeal scene, where a girl is drowned in a pool of her own shit and a yakuza boss stamps down on her lifeless body proclaiming "I've done it again!" smacks of wry self-mockery on Miike's part.

Sure it's over the top, scarcely believable and lacking the complexity you find in his best work, but it's a hell of a ride! DOA gives us a turf war between a gang of street punks, led by Chinese immigrant Ryuichi, and a Triad/Yakuza syndicate. It's ultraviolent to the point of lunacy, bodies stacking up like a Jenga tower, and the all-consuming rivalry between Ryuichi and Jojima plays out like a wittier, smarter version of Violent Cop.

And then there's the ending. In typically post-modern style, Ryuichi murmurs "Here comes the last scene", before all hell breaks loose. Without giving the game away, let's just say there's a slight change of, well, reality. It's guaranteed to leave you with your jaw on the floor when the credits roll, in much the same way as the opening sequence does.

犯罪者
Dir. Takashi Miike, 1999

Kai Doh Maru

Whilst it makes a nice change to see an anime set in ancient Japan rather than some mech-infested near future, it's unfortunate that this particular anime is so stultifyingly dull. The makers of Blood: The Last Vampire have created a finished film with Kai Doh Maru, but at least with Blood you could imagine what might have been.

The washed-out visuals, a stylistic choice presumably intended to endow a kind of far-off mysticism on the film, only adds to the general torpor that sets in from the get go. The fact that the plot, supposedly based on Japanese folklore, is somewhat contrived borders on irrelevance as you will have long since been comatised by characters with less charm and guile than a bag of spanners.

怪童丸
Dir. Kanji Wakabayashi, 2003

Boiling Point

This was, I think, the first Kitano film to feature his trademark technique of interspersing the action with still shots - both 'after the event' type shots showing the consequence of some previous event and surreal stills, like Uehara wearing the crown of flowers or the the three diners smiling with squid ink on their teeth. Along with his deadpan black humour, these kind of directorial flourishes have served to mark Kitano out from the crowd.

Basically a blueprint for Sonatine, Boiling Point follows a couple of days in the life of Masaki, a garage worker and amateur baseball player who gets caught up in a fracas with the local mob. It's about the choices he makes and the downward spiral those choices take him on: after going to Okinawa to get hold of a gun and witnessing Uehara's own run-ins with the mob, he ultimately takes his revenge on the Otomo clan in Tokyo.

Structually, Boiling Point is very similar to Sonatine - local trouble, pilgrimage to Okinawa, kicking about a bit (on a beach), returning home, exacting revenge in a blaze of violence. Thematically too; the baseball game that bookends the film is a metaphor for life - the randomness of the game mirroring Masaki's existence with its arbitrary sequence of hits and strikes. It's just that it was all done a little bit better in Sonatine.

3-4X10月
Dir. Takeshi Kitano, 1990

Blues Harp

I'm starting to think Takashi Miike doesn't make bad films. Even when he's telling a straightforward story, with traditional Yakuza elements and none of his trademark weirdness, Miike does it with considerable panache.

Blues Harp follows the fortunes of a young half-black, half-Japanese bar-worker and blues harp player called Chuji, and his tragic entanglement with ambitious junior Yakuza boss, Kenji. Miike weaves the characters' stories together with a deft touch, counterpointing unflinching violence and tenderness without falling into cliche or sentimentality. Despite its relatively short running time, the characters are nicely developed; the acting is of a high quality, always believable, and some of the cinematography is gorgeous. All in all, a fine little film.

ブルース・ハープ
Dir. Takashi Miike, 1998

Bloody Territories

The story of a rogue clan's last stand following the dissolution of its parent association, incorporating the usual yakuza motifs of turf war and clan politics.

Bloody Territories was made towards the end of the era of 'ninkyo eiga', or 'chivalrous cinema', a style of yakuza movie that has more in common with the samurai films produced by studios like Toei in the 40s and 50s than with modern gangster movies. These films were made in part to appease a nostalgia for a bygone age of honour and loyalty, preferring escapism over realism. The gangsters never use guns, always knives in samurai-style bamboo sheaths, and there is a strong emphasis on rival clans' codes of honour.

It's difficult now to put the film into context. From a modern standpoint it feels curiously anachronistic and isn't helped by the soundtrack, which places it firmly in the 60s. Reminiscent of the music from the Batman series or an episode of Dragnet, it's intrusive and works against the gravity the actors bring to their parts, particularly Akira Kobayashi, who shines as the headstrong young yakuza lieutenant, Yuji.

Daft score and artifice aside, the film packs in a couple of plot twists and some nice cinematography, but it won't live long in the memory.

流血の縄張
Dir. Yasuharu Hasebe, 1969

Ponyo

From the sublime to, if not the ridiculous, the deeply mediocre. Think Spongebob Squarepants without the laughs. OK, maybe that's a bit harsh given that the intended audience for this film probably isn't embittered 30-somethings.

I don't know, but I would guess that even children would find Ponyo less than engaging. The story just isn't there - instead you get some half-baked stuff about the moon, a baddie who isn't very bad at all and a little girl (Ponyo) with more than a touch of The Innsmouth Look about her. It doesn't add up to a whole lot.

As you'd expect from a Ghibli production, the animation has its moments. The storm, and the torrential rain lashing the island is particularly well-drawn. Overall though, the style is sketchier and more naive than other Miyazaki films I've seen. The cuteness and innocence of Ponyo is rarely contrived, but does wear thin in the absence of any coherent plot or original message. As a friend remarked, it leaves you wanting to go home and watch something debauched.

崖の上のポニョ
Dir. Hayao Miyazaki, 2008

Spirited Away

Crap. One of the most overrated films in the history of anime. Sorry. No, this is of course one of the finest pieces of animation you're ever likely to see. There's almost certainly nothing I can say about Spirited Away that hasn't been said already, but it hasn't been regurgitated on here yet, so...

For me, this film represents the pinnacle of the genre; a timeless, mystical, subtle, naive, profound piece of animated magic. The incredibly detailed hand-drawn animation is vibrant and fluid, the soundtrack dovetails perfectly with the mood of the film, as the Zen-like story, at once epic and infinitesimal in scope, gradually unfolds.

Whilst not groundbreaking in the same way Disney's Fantasia was, Spirited Away set a new benchmark for traditional animation that has yet to be surpassed.

千と千尋の神隠し
Dir. Hayao Miyazaki, 2001

Perfect Blue

If Hitchcock had done animation... it might have been something like this. It's unusual to find anime as intelligent and multi-layered as Perfect Blue, even if its ambition sometimes outstrips its execution. It charts the descent of a pop idol-turned-actress into madness. Mima's life spirals out of control, as she is plunged into a nightmare world of murder, exploitation and paranoid delusion.

This is the debut picture from writer-director Satoshi Kon, and it's a decent first effort. It has a lot of the motifs you find in his excellent OAV, Paranoia Agent; the effortless intertwining of fantasy and reality, touches of surrealism and a Lynch-like resistance to easy interpretation, crediting the viewer with the intelligence to solve its puzzles for themselves. Kon also got in early with the phenomenon of cyber-stalking: although it's less extreme and its themes are manifestly different, Cham brings to mind Dessart, and Mima's Room the spooky fan site in Suicide Club.

On the downside, the animation isn't going to blow any minds - it's solid enough, but done without a great deal of panache. The ending (and we're talking literally the last few moments here) is butt-clenchingly cheesy and strangely at odds with the dark mood of the film.

パーフェクトブルー
Dir. Satoshi Kon, 1998

Interstella 5555

Or Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem to give it its full title. There's a fine line between cheesiness and magic, and depending on your view of Daft Punk's Discovery, you'll probably have a view one way or the other on this movie too.

Personally I love Discovery, and this film, featuring animation overseen by legendary Japanese animator Leiji Matsumoto, really brought the album alive for me (no pun intended). The plot is obviously very simple - blue aliens are abducted by humans, brought to earth (nice twist on the old alien abduction), de-alienized, and turned into mass market pop star automatons. Aliens are rescued, evil corporation mogul is vanquished, aliens are returned to their home planet, everyone lives happily ever after in a universe of perfect human-alien bilateral harmony inside the mind of a sleeping child.

But then again, simplicity of plot is what you want from a good music video. Yes, there's a big fat moral here, but it's served up with such a light touch that you hardly notice. Daft Punk just want to teach the world to sing and you can't fault them for that, can you?

Dir. Kazuhisa Takenochi, 2003

Sonatine

The fourth outing as director for Takeshi Kitano marks a growing maturity and a further evolution of his visual style. Sonatine is a relentlessly nihilistic film, about how a man can lose his humanity, even his will to live, through constant exposure to violence and killing.

Kitano is Murakawa, a successful Yakuza boss who is persuaded to leave his patch in Tokyo to go to the aid of a gang in Okinawa engaged in a turf war with a rival clan, only to find he's been duped. After a shoot-out in a bar, Murakawa and his crew hole up in a beach hide out, which comprises the second third of the film. The pace slows to a crawl, and what started out as a gangster film becomes an obliquely humorous exercise in killing time.

It's unusual for sure, and more thoughtful than your average Yakuza flick, but at the same time, impenetrably cold. Murakawa has a certain jaded charisma, but on more than one occasion, when the camera lingers on his emotionless face and the faces of other yakuza, you realize you're watching a film about gruesome banality; hollow men, past the point of no return. And if that's the intention, then you would have to say Sonatine is a success.

ソナチネ
Dir. Takeshi Kitano, 1993