a review of 极道大战争

#28: Yakuza Apocalypse (Amazon Prime streaming) I've been a fan of Takashi Miike ever since the early DVD-only days of Netflix, when I rented his classic 1999 Dead or Alive purely on impulse, after seeing the trailer on an anime DVD. That film basically summed up my feelings on Miike: Moments of apocalyptically surreal insanity, bookended with slowly-paced stretches of deceptive normalcy. Miike has a different rhythm than a lot of filmmakers, but he almost always makes the wait between his more unforgettable images worth it. This one took me by surprise, since it's basically a bigger-budget, theatrical redux of his late '90s/early '00s direct-to-video works like the DoA series, Visitor Q, and (perhaps most importantly to this film) Full Metal Yakuza. In spite of the vampire-yakuza premise, it's not really a horror or crime film, but more of a martial-arts comedy along the lines of Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle. The vampire angle is mostly used as a heavily-lampshaded metaphor for how yakuza groups basically "feed" off of civilian businesses and institutions. In a bit of social commentary, the film's hero bites and inadvertently transforms a large chunk of his town's populace into vampire yakuza, which causes the mild-mannered citizens to suddenly take on gangster personality traits along with a thirst for blood, sparking a slapsticky gang war in the middle of the film. Not one to stay on one particular subject or tone for too long, Miike packs the last half hour with one of his patented everything-but-the-kitchen-sink climaxes, culminating in a supernatural armageddon that feels like the spiritual descendent of the unforgettable final moments of Dead or Alive. One's enjoyment of this film hinges largely on how high one's tolerance is for random, low-culture weirdness in your foreign pop-art cinema. but I had a good time with this one and appreciate Miike getting back in touch with his roots.