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Saturday, October 3, 2015

"Yakuza Apocalypse" (2015), and "What Happened to Miike?"

*Review by assistant staff member Benji Stinson, edited by Ross Goodman

Newly implanted into Los Angeles, I have been overjoyed to explore a wider variety of cinema on the big screen than ever before. A longtime theater evader due to over-priced admission cost, "hope you get a good spot" seating, and to an all around bland selection of the Hollywood formula, it's not my movie venue of choice. But with the new selection LA has to offer, I have become an evangelical movie-theater-going convert. When I happened upon the fact that one of the once-greatest directors of cinema would be having a film play on the big screen, I jumped at a chance to see Takashi Miike's Yakuza Apocalypse.

Having high expectations for a Takashi Miike film over the past decade should be met with caution. Miike's golden era of the 90s into the 00s consisted of brave and innovative films--as many as you can possibly consume: the uncompromising action and mastermind chess plot of  Yakuza Demon, IZO a surrealistic experimental film of the highest caliber, the children's classic The Great Yokai War, a blueprint for a successful manga adaptation Crows Zero, and the quirky super-anti-hero film Zebraman which can appeal to more than just the typical comic fan while maintaining a vision unique from your typical superhero movie.

There are even more notable (and relatively obvious) films worth mentioning and watching from this period: Ichi the Killer, Visitor Q, Dead or Alive 1 & 2, Agitator, The Happiness of the Katakuris, Gozu, The Man in White ... yes, the list goes on beyond there ... it seemed for a while that Miike was pumping out pure innovation, an endless stream of films of the highest caliber. It was easy to readily forgive him for the duds ... but they soon became more and more common...

Toward the end of the 2000's and into the 2010's, there were signs of Miike's talent beginning to rot, or perhaps a cancer of apathy began to seep into his work. More and more we were left with dregs. Starting from the late 00's into the 2010's the failures became more commonplace.

Detective Story - a film seemingly more interested in delivering commercial thrills than anything of memorable or unique value. Sukiyaki Western Django - a film dripping with a gritty stylistic quality but failing every other step of the way, harshly reduced by poor English dialogue forced upon a non-English speaking Japanese cast for the entire film. God's Puzzle - a muddled mess which embarrasses its own self by failing to come to any significant metaphysical enlightenment the way it hopes to. Zebraman 2, a dire disaster and equally boring (which seems to be the basis for The Purge, although it is possible both stories stole their "'its ok to kill this time" concept from elsewhere), and the massively dramatic build up to the story line's failed payoff of Shield of Straw, which Miike wisely debuted outside of competition at Cannes.

While Miike's 2010 output has not been a complete failure, it has not been amazing either. A few of the more notable films of his more recent output include the following: 13 Assassins, a solid jidaigeki samurai cinema which throws back to Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai with a comparable feeling of Kinji Fukasaku's samuria films starring Sonny Chiba, but it feels like any director of talent could have made ​​this film (not distinctly Miike). The Mole Song: Undercover Agent Reiji, another piece dripping with stylistic fun, is far from Miike's best in the yakuza or absurdist comedy category. Hara Kiri, a remake of the overrated (though we will save this discussion for another time) black and white classic which is simultaneously forgettable but well executed. Yet again not distinctly Miike. Lastly, Lesson of Evil - the first two thirds drag on in a boring and typical manner but is redeemed by its third act - a finale.

As a prolific director with a massive back catalog of some of the most daring and innovative film ever made, along with plenty of "fall on his face" failures, it is hard to walk into a theater to see a Miike film not have certain hopes or expectations. I was hoping a revisit to the yakuza genre, a genre which he helped transform immensely, would be a certain return to form for Miike. The quirky angle of 'yakuza vampires' might be just the right combination to relight the spark of ingenious insanity.

Unfortunately this not what the case. It was only 4 years ago the excellent, absurd parody Yakuza Weapon (Tak Sakaguchi and Yudai Yamaguchi) came out. It is probably fair to say I expected something more along the lines of this type of ultra-camp yakuza parody silliness than the complete muddled mess spilled out across the canvas of the theater screen.

Where do we begin to describe what unfolded?
  • Too many half-baked choreographed mess of close-up fight scenes. Miike needs to watch this BADLY.
  • A thin story with a confusing ending cliffhanger that other aspects of the film failed to make up for.
  • Not much experimentation. Experimentation is something Miike has been known to excel at in flying colors. The cinematography can be written off as a "textbook clean and technically correct" form. In other words passable to the general audience, but boring boring boring and just plain lacking in style.
  • Solid acting - a few familiar Miike film faces, but mostly fresh newcomers to his ensemble who offer something closer to "passable acting" than we would hope to see in a Miike film.
  • Miike maintains his own unexplainable yet refreshing quirky rules - frogman villain, female yakuza going crazy in a amusing way, and a handful of other quirky fun moments. Unfortunately the camp does not silver line the film, but attempts to carry it with jokes and absurd moments - almost falling flat as often as they land.

How does a director make a commercial film for the Japanese yakuza-genre audience with quality and innovation these days? It was not too long ago Sono Sion's Tokyo Tribe released. Tokyo Tribe followed many conventions of commercial appeal: unrealistically good-hearted 'bad' protagonists, a pop / hip hop soundtrack, and a cast that looks like it what hand picked from a fashion magazine. Yet it never failed to come across as innovate or remain interesting - though I would concede far from Sono Sion's best - it seems as though I was not the only other person to make this connection. I overheard chatter of Tokyo Tribe connections (commercial, quirky angle) at my viewing. The point of this digression is yes, you can in fact have commercial appeal and quality with this type of movie, but Miike missed the mark this time around.

Historically speaking, Yakuza Apocalypse was released the same year as the world's largest crime organization - the Yamaguchi-gumi - is projected to be gearing up for at eruption of schismatic violence. The analogy for yakuza being portrayed as vampires - criminals sucking blood from the well-to-do civilians - plays out in moments such as the yakuza captain Genkyo Kamiura's statement that "without civilians, yakuza can not survive." Still, Yakuza Apocalypse does not amount to any profound philosophical enlightening grandeur. Instead the film takes the soft path of satirizing the concept of ninkyō (yakuza code of honor) in a humorous, light-hearted way.

My movie ticket to "Yakuza Apocalypse."
In memory of a not so memorable film
Wrap Up: The film checks off a lot of bullet points on the list of passable, which bumps it past the halfway point of "watchable." Yakuza Apocalypse's biggest sin is how forgettable it is - a particularly deep issue for a director whose trademark of what once uncompromising in content, and in moments of notable impact.

Grade: 6.7 (I run a harsher scale than Ross). I drop this film squarely in the "good background movie" zone.

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