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I can think of few other directors who would go so far out of their way to make as contrary a sequel as Dead Or Alive 2. It's a mark of Miike's rebelliousness and his distaste for the diminishing creative returns of the franchise model that the second film in the DOA trilogy bears almost no resemblance to the original. It's also a mark of his continual need to push the film-making envelope, defying audience expectation in the process.
DOA 2 stars the same two leads as DOA, Sho Aikawa and Riki Takeuchi, but they don't reprise their roles from that film (how could they?!). Instead, they play a pair of hit men, working independtly of one another, who end up targeting the same mark. Sawada beats Okamoto to the kill, but Okamoto decides to take his clients' money anyway and run. They both flee to the same small island, where it transpires they grew up together; childhood friends. The second act of the movie sees a reawakening of their friendship and leads to the formation of a plan - to work together and put their ill-gotten gains to good use, reinvesting hit money in foreign aid. Nothing is ever quite so black and white with Miike though - redemption for his characters comes at a heavy cost.
Although it doesn't quite deliver the compulsive viewing of its predecessor, DOA 2 is nevertheless an intriguing movie. By turns humourous, contemplative and surprisingly poignant, it's full of unexpected scenes, like the childrens' play Sawada and Okamoto decide to stage. The intrusion of adult themes into the play echo what is arguably the main theme of DOA 2 - loss of innocence, or rather, the gradual dissolution of childhood; the indefinable transition from what we were into what we become. This is framed throughout by the question "where are you?"; addressed, perhaps, to the viewer's inner child. In many ways, the film is reminiscent of Kitano Takeshi's style; extreme violence counterpointing a quiet reflection on the human condition; on friendship, memory and shared experience.
犯罪者 2
Dir. Takashi Miike, 2000
Another anime based on older source material; in this case, Yasutaka Tsutui's 1967 novel of the same name.
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is an undeniably charming piece of animation, with a deceptively simplistic visual style. Deceptive because your first impression is of how clean and uncluttered it feels, almost minimalistic, but then you gradually become aware of subtle layers of detail, which never compete for your eye's attention but are there if you allow your gaze to drift around the frame.
The plot, concerning a high school girl, Makoto, who discovers the ability to leap backwards through time, is quirkily entertaining, if slight. It's got a kind of 80s feel to it - the sort of movie you could easily imagine getting made back then, when literally everyone was leaping around time in Air Jordans and drainpipe jeans - sort of like Quantum Leap meets Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Temporal back flips and metaphysical wizardry aside, it does basically boil down to a teen romance played out across time, space, death and reality (to lift a phrase). But that's no bad thing - even though it verges on schmaltzy when I might have preferred it to verge on edgy, and suffers from the same gaping plot holes that beleaguer any film concerning time travel, it's still a thoroughly entertaining watch.
From the point of view of someone who appreciates great artwork in anime, the story is a distant second to the enchantment of the hand-drawn animation; a triumph of understatement.
時をかける少女
Dir. Mamoru Hosoda, 2006
Metropolis is based on Osamu Tezuka's unfinished manga from 1949, itself inspired by Fritz Lang's 1927 silent film of the same name. The central theme of both manga and anime is the hubris of Man and his inevitable downfall, symbolised by the fall of the Tower of Babel, as it is in Lang's film.
There are also character analogues - Duke Red could be John Fredersen, Dr. Loughton echoes Rotwang, the mad professor, and Tima, created at the behest of Metropolis's ruler, the robot Maria. Beyond this though, any similarities in plot are superficial at best; Rintaro's Metropolis is about a militarized Ziggurat, Duke Red's own Babylonian tower, through which he plans to consolidate his power base. The Ziggurat is designed to be the ultimate weapon, realized by its integration with Tima - a robotic super-human; the tower's 'brain'. This is where the hand of screenwriter and Akira creator Katsuhiro Otomo really shows itself: Tima, only human in outward appearance, carries within her a potential for transformation that is far more destructive and all-encompassing than her creators could have imagined.
Despite being relatively multi-faceted, however, the story is hardly original, riffing on eveything from Tezuka's original Metropolis, Akira, Ghost in the Shell... through to Ghostbusters even (the old Gozerian paradigm). Behind this furious hotchpotch of narrative elements, the film is scored by a strangely ill-fitting Swing Jazz soundtrack (which morphs alarmingly at one point into what can only be described as Jazz Trance). But then there's the visuals - and what visuals they are. A combination of beautifully modelled CGI and hand-drawn cell animation, that reach an apex of immaculate, fluid detail in the destruction of Duke Red's tower; the symbolic liberation of Metropolis. It's a credit to Rintaro that he perceives digital animation as merely another tool in his armoury and does not, as other directors have done, abandon his artistic principles for technology fetishism.
One for the eyes this; send your brain on vacation.
メトロポリス
Dir. Rintaro, 2001
An unsteady zoom shot finds us at the centre of a wedding reception. The opening scene, and the focal point of the action throughout the film, is a peculiarly joyless union of two former student activists, Nozawa and Reiko. Instead of being a celebratory occasion, it turns into a moral inquisition as various wedding guests and associates come forward to tell their story. In so doing, they gradually poison the atmosphere with accusations of political and personal infidelity.
Oshima's contempt for the ineffectiveness, as well as the hypocritical, bourgeois tendencies of the leftist Zengakuren movement is plain to see. As the history of Nozawa's faction unfolds, revealed through a series of flashbacks, their collective will is shown to be fatally undermined by internal power struggles. The demonstration against the US-Japan AMPO Treaty, a key battleground in the Zengakuren struggle, is lost. Characters like Nakayama, the group's vainglorious and didactic leader, are more interested in feathering their own nests than putting into practice the Marxist ideology they espouse.
In some ways, this austere, serious film about the generation gap (symbolized by Reiko, Nozawa and their professor at the bridal table) and the failure of matrimony and fraternity to bridge that gap, could be viewed as a triumph for Oshima; it was daring for its time, not just politically but also in a filmic sense - the expressionistic use of shots and overt theatricality are bold choices. But they are also bad choices, to my mind. The unrelenting dryness of the subject matter, the dark lighting, spatial constraints and humourlessness of everyone involved induces a grim ennui (it took me 4 separate attempts to get through it!). Likewise, the staginess of the production doesn't lend itself naturally to film. The AMPO demonstration, for instance, is given a symbolic treatment - pitching the set into darkness and spotlighting key protagonists in static postures of insurrection, like paintings of war in a dark, silent gallery. Your imagination is supposed to fill in the blanks. It's the kind of thing that works well on stage, but transplanted to the screen, just seems lifeless and self-consciously stylized.
In truth, this is a film that has become stratified in time. Taken out of the context of its very specific historical locus, stripped of its political relevance, it serves only to document a darkly remembered undercurrent of Japanese post-war history. On a narrative and dramatic level, it simply fails to engage.
日本の夜と霧
Dir. Nagisha Oshima, 1960
Out of the blue, mysterious chanteuse Ryuko starts frequenting Kyohei's private club, Black Rose Mansion, serenading its members (mostly middle-aged men) with romantic ballads. The whys are wherefores are never made clear but quickly she takes on an almost mythical aspect in the club, captivating everyone who lays eyes on her - not least of all Kyohei himself. In a grand romantic gesture, Kyohei renovates the mansion for Ryuko to live in in a bid to ensnare her affections. His plans are laid to waste though by the return of his prodigal son Wataru who, predictably, also falls in love with Ryuko. She duly betrays Kyohei for his son and ultimately Wataru is forced to choose between her and his father. Throughout the film, Ryuko carries a black rose, which she says will turn red when she finds her true love. As Kyohei predicts, it finally turns red through Wataru's spilt blood.
As I'm finding to be the case quite consistently with Fukasaku, the plot is essentially hokum and the narrative chock full of clunky devices - most obviously the eponymous black rose in this case - but all is not lost. Whilst still infused with the same 60s psychedelia, it doesn't feel as painfully modish as Blackmail Is My Life. It basically boils down a rather old-fashioned cautionary tale about the dangers of acceding to impetuosity; of confusing lust with love. And at its heart is the classic femme fatale in the shape of Ryuko. Except that she's not exactly a classic: in fact, a big dollop of suspended desbelief is required to buy into the idea that she is some kind of irresistable temptress. Her looks are unconventional to say the least, and her singing voice is deeper than an Arctic borehole. So it wasn't a complete shock to learn that she was played by famous female impersonator of the day, Akihiro Miwa. A strange casting choice, but in a way it just adds to the film's already unreal air - a curious melange of Buñuel, The Mod Squad and Hammer Horror, at its hammiest.
There's some ropey dialogue to be sure, and the visual effects leave a bit to be desired - the red poster paint makes another appearance, along with a proliferation of rather heavy-handed flashbacks, shot through a lurid scarlet filter - but I can't say I had a bad old time.
黒薔薇の館
Dir. Kinji Fukasaku, 1969
Hokey 60s crime drama which sees a proto-Hustle team extort and blackmail their way through a series of a small jobs before landing the big one - and getting in over their heads; caught in the crossfire between a corrupt politician and a powerful loan shark.
Not much to recommend this really; the story is risible, the acting ligneous, and it's dated horribly - from the grating, jangly soundtrack to the painfully stylized camera work. Fukasaku doesn't deploy the freeze frame technique once or twice, he uses it throughout the entire movie as short-hand for flashbacks, or sometimes, just for the sheer hell of it. Coupled with wobbly pull back shots and randomly interspersed black and white segments, it's enough to make the viewer feel ill.
It also has some of the most laughable death sequences I've seen. Zero summons up the strength to throw three punches at thin air before collapsing theatrically, then, in the film's final sequence, Shun spills several buckets of red paint over a zebra crossing before uttering the priceless closing line; "what a stupid way to go". I couldn't agree more.
恐喝こそわが人生
Dir. Kinji Fukasaku, 1968
After my previous foray into pink cinema turned out to be more rewarding than expected, I thought I'd give this one a spin, especially since Ryu Murakami wrote the novel on which Miike's Audition was based.
Now, Rotten Tomatoes, among others, would have you believe that this is a savage indictment on Japan's sex industry and the hypocrisy of society at large. I can believe that may have been Murakami's intention, but the end result is a bit of a mess. At a couple of points it threatens to take an interesting turn; the claustrophobia of low-lit hotel rooms and shadowy, sadistic salarymen inviting seedy revelation, but proceeds instead to stumble through a series of rather tame, and deeply unerotic S&M scenes. The closest we get to a coherent, if less than subtle, social agenda is in the scene at the dominatrix's apartment, where she says something like "Japan is a wealthy country, ill at ease with its wealth; this breeds anxiety and masochistic tendencies, which I exploit for money". But ironically, she herself is dominated by a crack addiction. See the bigger picture? Nudge, nudge.
Our heroine, in a constant state of trepidation and desperately in need of a personality transplant, is Ai (Japanese for 'love'), played by Miho Nikaido. Ai is very much the submissive type, and I think we're supposed to feel for her and the debasement she is forced to endure. The trouble is I don't - I just find myself thinking, you've chosen to work for this agency, you keep going to the jobs... the only one that proves too much for her is being asked to recreate the murder and rape of a woman at the foot of Mount Fuji by a necrophiliac screening an image of said mountain onto the wall of his hotel room. The movie basically implodes in the final act - a seemingly stoned Ai wanders around the suburbs looking for her ex-lover (now married) in a white smock and a pair of yellow high heels. She lets fireworks off on someone's drive way, she falls off a ladder, she is serenaded by a mad old dame in a playground and hallucinates her tormentors. Then she goes back to work.
トパーズ
Dir. Ryu Murakami, 1992
Even the most ardent Miike fan would struggle to salvage anything praiseworthy from this low-budget thriller come karate flick, hamstrung as it is by a muddy colour palette and poor production values. It may appeal to fans of martial arts, but personally I have no love for that genre.The story is pretty cliched: small-time player Junpei betrays his Yakuza clan, the Soryu Group, and stashes away ¥500m before being arrested and doing 5 years in jail. After he is released, he aims to pick up where he left off with his old flame and recoup his ill-gotten gains, but realizing his former boss will be out for blood, he hires Dojo master Kiba to protect him. On returning to Tokyo, the Soryu Group's apparent kidnapping of his girlfriend leads him on a rescue mission that isn't quite all that it seems...Any Yakuza film that features virtually no guns, where scores are settled by hand-to-hand combat, is pushing the bounds of credibility. That the villains then line up, one by one, to be round-housed into unconsciousness, just adds insult to injury. The film also has a very 80s feel to it, consummated in the faintly ridiculous final sequence, when the score bursts into a saxophone solo as the end credits roll.ボディガード牙
Dir. Takashi Miike, 1993
Another graduate of the Cannes circuit, Nobody Knows is based on a real life event from the late Eighties where four children were abandoned by their mother and left to fend for themselves in their Tokyo apartment, with tragic consequences.
What I like about this film is its lightness of touch - it's a modern morality tale that resists melodrama, sentimentality and judgementalism almost entirely (the score too, generally eschews emotional manipulation), in lieu of an intimate portrait of the everyday existence of the four abandoned kids. The children all act very well, especially Yuya Yagira as 12-year old Akira, who impresses as the nominal head of the household, struggling to come to terms with his mother's neglect; forced to deal with an inner conflict between wanting a childhood for himself and assuming responsibility for his younger siblings. In the end, naivety engenders a slow descent into unpaid bills, squalor and malnutrition. When I say 'slow descent' though, it's painfully slow and that's really the film's Achilles' heel. It gives you time to really get to know the characters, but not much actually happens (until the bleak finale) - and with a running time of 2 hours 20 minutes, that means it frequently drags.
So despite being commendably realistic and refreshingly subtle in its execution, it's not a film I can imagine wanting to revisit any time soon.
誰も知らないDir. Koreeda Hirokazu, 2004
Not exactly what I was expecting. From the title, and the fact it did the rounds at Cannes, I was expecting an Ozu rerun for modern times, but it's actually more akin to a Japanese version of Round the Twist - that gently surreal Antipodean kids show from the early 90s. The story, if it can properly be called a story, centres around an eccentric family in rural Japan; their individual lives and dreams, but also their place in the family unit.It's not without its charms, and it probably does hit (hit is too strong, gently tap would be more apposite) on some basic truths about human nature, but ultimately Ishii's self-consciously wacky approach to direction left me feeling more irritated than heart-warmed. There's the zany grandpa with his preposterous barnet and bushy unibrow, the zany young girl, Sachiko, with her giant doppleganger (a sort of metaphorical guardian spirit perhaps), the zany boy, Hajime, and his awkward forays into romance. Maybe it's just the cynic me, but there's only so much good-natued zaniness I can take in one film.茶の味Dir. Katsuhito Ishii, 2004
I can think of few other directors who would go so far out of their way to make as contrary a sequel as Dead Or Alive 2. It's a mark of Miike's rebelliousness and his distaste for the diminishing creative returns of the franchise model that the second film in the DOA trilogy bears almost no resemblance to the original. It's also a mark of his continual need to push the film-making envelope, defying audience expectation in the process.
