My first Takashi Miike flick. It's a very Tarantino-esque crime-thriller. Only goofier and more Japanese. It tells several different tales all spread across one unusually hot summer's night in the fictional city of Kamurochō. I enjoyed jumping back-and-forth between the often violent misadventures of the young couple on a robbing spree, the duo of ski masked buffoons holding hostages at a bank, a mysterious Korean hitman on a mission, among others like the cops who are trying to get the madness unfolding in the streets under control. Each of which revolve around a central plot involving a recently released from prison former gang member's quest to help a little girl find her mother and a Yakuza clan's missing 10 billion yen. It's a delightfully entertaining romp of martial arts action, a great sense of humor, eccentric characters, and terrific style. Plus, watching these degenerates go about their business can just be such a vibe, man. Like, borderline hangout movie stuff. This is really the kind of thing you watch to get lost in the atmosphere, tone, sights, beats, and feel of the individual moments rather than becoming too invested in the writing. That's because the film is actually at its worst when it tries to bring all these relatively disparate threads together in an attempt to form a cohesive narrative by the conclusion. The big villain isn't even introduced until the final act and it turns out the motivations behind the actions of the woman the main protagonist spends the entire runtime looking for receive no explanation, so the whole experience ultimately ends up making no sense. It almost doesn't matter however. I was initially going to write this review without ever mentioning the fact that this was based on a video game, as it quite nearly transcends what we are typically given from the cinematic adaptations of that other medium (and because I'm a little embarrassed to admit I've been watching so many of these lately, but that's neither here nor there). If it had managed to stick the landing and neatly wrap up all the storylines in an intelligible manner, it's not hard to think that this could have ranked among the prolific director's most notable works and been sat alongside the Pulp Fictions of the world, if solely in the minds of his enthusiasts. As it stands, this is still as close as something of this ilk has ever come to being of genuine higher merit and carries legitimate cult classic potential. I'll undoubtedly return to it again in the future.