Probably the most “serious” film Miike has shot lately among the raving madness of productions like “The Mole Song” and “Yakuza Apocalypse”, “Over Your Dead Body” stands apart for two other reasons. The protagonist is the famous kabuki actor Ichikawa Ebizo XI, and the script is based on the quintessential Japanese horror tale of “The Ghost Story of Yotsuya” (Yotsuya Kaidan), although Miike’s style had a definite say in the final outcome.
The film follows a theatre troupe as they rehearse a play where a samurai seduces a woman and then murders her disapproving father, in order to inherit his estate. However, when he is offered the granddaughter of another wealthy man, his true colors are disclosed to his wife, who eventually returns as a ghost to hunt him. In actual life within the movie, the female star of the film named Miyuki Goto has pulled...
The film follows a theatre troupe as they rehearse a play where a samurai seduces a woman and then murders her disapproving father, in order to inherit his estate. However, when he is offered the granddaughter of another wealthy man, his true colors are disclosed to his wife, who eventually returns as a ghost to hunt him. In actual life within the movie, the female star of the film named Miyuki Goto has pulled...
- 7/29/2021
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
The Japanese actor Takao Osawa was so moved by Masashi Sada’s popular song “The Lion Standing in The Wind”, that he approached the songwriter with a suggestion of adapting it into a novel. Not only that Sada made Osawa’s wish come true, but he also wrote the movie script based on the novel inspired by the song, thus, one would believe – completing the circle. “The Lion Standing Still” – all forms of it – is based on a true story about Koichiro Shimada (Takao Osawa), a Japanese doctor who in 1987, motivated by a long-time medical missionary in Africa Albert Schweizer, left the university hospital in Nagoya to join the research team of The Institute of Tropical medicine in Kenya, the country where he found his tragic end. It is indeed a story of big importance that deserves to be told, and yet it is difficult to comprehend what made Takashi Miike...
- 8/20/2019
- by Marina D. Richter
- AsianMoviePulse
The collage of different ideas that is usually the trademark of Miike’s cinema finds one of its apogees in “Zebraman 2”, a film that manages to portray a pointy sociopolitical satire about 2010 Tokyo and Japan in general, while incorporating a number of absurd ideas and a more than delirious narrative.
The story takes place in 2025, when Tokyo has been taken over by an eccentric Mayor named Kozo Aihara, who looks like he jumped straight from “A Clockwork Orange”, has changed the name of the city to Zebra City, and fully capitalizing on Zebraman’s heroics 15 years ago, has introduced Zebra time. This last concept is probably the most significant change, since, every day from 5:00 Am and for five minutes, all crime is legal. Among bosses raping their secretaries and a number of other crimes, the Zebra Police (who look like the members of a boy band...
The story takes place in 2025, when Tokyo has been taken over by an eccentric Mayor named Kozo Aihara, who looks like he jumped straight from “A Clockwork Orange”, has changed the name of the city to Zebra City, and fully capitalizing on Zebraman’s heroics 15 years ago, has introduced Zebra time. This last concept is probably the most significant change, since, every day from 5:00 Am and for five minutes, all crime is legal. Among bosses raping their secretaries and a number of other crimes, the Zebra Police (who look like the members of a boy band...
- 8/18/2019
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Bringing together one of the most cult directors (Miike), one of the most popular crime novelists and a great cast seems like a recipe for an inevitable success. How this film managed to be so mediocre, remains a mystery for me. Let us take things from the beginning though.
Higashino, in one of his most surrealistic (even sci-fi one could say) works, bases its story on the concept of the Laplace Demon, a creature that knows the precise location and momentum of every atom in the universe, and thus, can predict everything that will happen in the near future. The film and the actual story, however, begin much differently, through a case of the murder of two people being poisoned to death by hydrogen sulfide at hot springs located in different regions. The police is perplexed and ask Shusuke Aoe, a geochemist college professor, to help, but...
Higashino, in one of his most surrealistic (even sci-fi one could say) works, bases its story on the concept of the Laplace Demon, a creature that knows the precise location and momentum of every atom in the universe, and thus, can predict everything that will happen in the near future. The film and the actual story, however, begin much differently, through a case of the murder of two people being poisoned to death by hydrogen sulfide at hot springs located in different regions. The police is perplexed and ask Shusuke Aoe, a geochemist college professor, to help, but...
- 8/9/2019
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
If there is one thing no one can accuse Miike of, that would be for lack of diversity. In our project regarding his filmography, we have dealt with movies almost of any kind, from indie dramas to violent crime movies and almost anything between. Thus, it was inevitable for him not to deal with a kids’ movie, particularly since his filmography turned almost exclusively towards manga/anime adaptations. “Ninja Kids”, which is based on the anime series “Nintama Rintaro”, in its turn based on the manga “Rakudai Ninja Rantaro”, serves exactly this purpose, although with a distinct Miike flavor.
The film takes place in the Muromachi period in the 16th century, and the protagonist of the story is a bespectacled kid named Rantaro, whose low-class ninja parents send him to the 6-year ninja school, as the movie begins. In theory, the Ninja Academy is a proper college,...
The film takes place in the Muromachi period in the 16th century, and the protagonist of the story is a bespectacled kid named Rantaro, whose low-class ninja parents send him to the 6-year ninja school, as the movie begins. In theory, the Ninja Academy is a proper college,...
- 8/7/2019
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Takashi Miike’s second phase of filmmaking, the one mostly dealing with manga adaptations, has been at its best when the Japanese master was able to make films that function as a collage of different ideas. “Ai to Makoto”, the manga by Ikki Kajiwara and Takumi Nagayasu the film is based on, gave Miike a perfect opportunity to produce a movie in that style, as it includes elements of 70s exploitation, musical and anime/manga aesthetics, to name a few. Let us take things from the beginning though.
The anime intro begins in 1961, when a skiing accident introduces the aristocrat Ai to the punk Makoto. 11 years later, and in live-action mode, the two meet again, when Ai, a senior in a prestigious high school, stumbles upon Makoto as he fights the members of a Tokyo gang on his own. Makoto emerges victorious, after the first musical act of the film,...
The anime intro begins in 1961, when a skiing accident introduces the aristocrat Ai to the punk Makoto. 11 years later, and in live-action mode, the two meet again, when Ai, a senior in a prestigious high school, stumbles upon Makoto as he fights the members of a Tokyo gang on his own. Makoto emerges victorious, after the first musical act of the film,...
- 8/5/2019
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Based on the great, homonymous novel by Kazuhiro Kiuchi, and having quite a large budget, since it was backed by Warner Bros, “Shield of Straw” had all the prerequisites for being a masterpiece.
A deadly game of hide-and-seek against the whole population
Kunihide Kiyomaru, who has a prior conviction for assaulting and killing a girl 8 years ago, is, once more, accused of a similar, grotesque crime. This time, however, the victim is the granddaughter of a Japanese tycoon and very powerful man, named Ninagawa. Three months after the murder, Ninagawa places a whole page ad in newspapers offering 1 billion yen to anyone who kills the perpetrator.
Kiyomaru, fearing for his life, surrenders to the police at the Fukuoka Police Station. Five detectives from the security section of Tokyo Metropolitan Police arrive in Fukuoka, in order to escort him to Tokyo. In their efforts, the five detectives (Kazuki Mekari, Atsuko Shiraiwa,...
A deadly game of hide-and-seek against the whole population
Kunihide Kiyomaru, who has a prior conviction for assaulting and killing a girl 8 years ago, is, once more, accused of a similar, grotesque crime. This time, however, the victim is the granddaughter of a Japanese tycoon and very powerful man, named Ninagawa. Three months after the murder, Ninagawa places a whole page ad in newspapers offering 1 billion yen to anyone who kills the perpetrator.
Kiyomaru, fearing for his life, surrenders to the police at the Fukuoka Police Station. Five detectives from the security section of Tokyo Metropolitan Police arrive in Fukuoka, in order to escort him to Tokyo. In their efforts, the five detectives (Kazuki Mekari, Atsuko Shiraiwa,...
- 10/8/2016
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Yakuza Apocalypse: The Great War of the Underworld (Gokudo Dai Senso)
Directed by Takashi Miike
Screenplay by Yoshitaka Yamaguchi
2015, Japan
Prolific Japanese genre auteur Takashi Miike returns to his gonzo roots with Yakuza Apocalypse, a genre mashup about a yakuza boss named Kamiura (Lily Franky) who’s assassinated by a coffin-toting English-speaking, Japanese, Django-wannabe gunslinger and his trusty sidekick (played by Indonesian action star Yayan Ruhian from The Raid). Just before his death, Kamiura’s decapitated head takes a bite out of his young protegé Kagayama (played by ruggedly handsome Hayato Ichihara), turning him into a bloodsucking vampire. Kagayama then takes to the streets turning regular citizens into the undead while rounding up an army of night-walkers before seeking revenge on his mentor’s killers.
Restraint is not a concept in the cinematic vocabulary of Miike Takashi and boy does he go wild here. If you were bored with...
Directed by Takashi Miike
Screenplay by Yoshitaka Yamaguchi
2015, Japan
Prolific Japanese genre auteur Takashi Miike returns to his gonzo roots with Yakuza Apocalypse, a genre mashup about a yakuza boss named Kamiura (Lily Franky) who’s assassinated by a coffin-toting English-speaking, Japanese, Django-wannabe gunslinger and his trusty sidekick (played by Indonesian action star Yayan Ruhian from The Raid). Just before his death, Kamiura’s decapitated head takes a bite out of his young protegé Kagayama (played by ruggedly handsome Hayato Ichihara), turning him into a bloodsucking vampire. Kagayama then takes to the streets turning regular citizens into the undead while rounding up an army of night-walkers before seeking revenge on his mentor’s killers.
Restraint is not a concept in the cinematic vocabulary of Miike Takashi and boy does he go wild here. If you were bored with...
- 9/26/2015
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
(The review of 13 Assassins included below was originally posted as part of my coverage of the London Film Festival. Below the review of the film you can find my thoughts on the new Blu-ray release from Artificial Eye.)
The Film
Edo period Japan and the untouchable brother of the Shogun, the villainous Lord Naritsugu (played wonderfully by Smap member Goro Inagaki), is out of control and a group of samurai (and a wandering bandit) set out to assassinate Naritsugu before he rises too high and things get far worse. Laying a trap for him and his guards the group of assassins must fight through hundreds of of men in order to get to him. In their efforts to kill him they employ complex tactics and ingenious contraptions but it is their tenacity that is perhaps their greatest strength.
13 Assassins is based on a true story and is also a remake...
The Film
Edo period Japan and the untouchable brother of the Shogun, the villainous Lord Naritsugu (played wonderfully by Smap member Goro Inagaki), is out of control and a group of samurai (and a wandering bandit) set out to assassinate Naritsugu before he rises too high and things get far worse. Laying a trap for him and his guards the group of assassins must fight through hundreds of of men in order to get to him. In their efforts to kill him they employ complex tactics and ingenious contraptions but it is their tenacity that is perhaps their greatest strength.
13 Assassins is based on a true story and is also a remake...
- 8/31/2011
- by Craig Skinner
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Edo period Japan and the untouchable brother of the Shogun, the villainous Lord Naritsugu (played wonderfully by Smap member Goro Inagaki), is out of control and a group of samurai (and a wandering bandit) set out to assassinate Naritsugu before he rises too high and things get far worse. Laying a trap for him and his guards the group of assassins must fight through hundreds of of men in order to get to him. In their efforts to kill him they employ complex tactics and ingenious contraptions but it is their tenacity that is perhaps their greatest strength.
13 Assassins is based on a true story and is also a remake of an under-seen but exceptional 1963 film of the same name by Eiichi Kudo. Kudo’s original was the first film in a loose trilogy with The Great Killing and 11 Assassins. Although The Great Killing is often considered his masterpiece, perhaps...
13 Assassins is based on a true story and is also a remake of an under-seen but exceptional 1963 film of the same name by Eiichi Kudo. Kudo’s original was the first film in a loose trilogy with The Great Killing and 11 Assassins. Although The Great Killing is often considered his masterpiece, perhaps...
- 5/3/2011
- by Craig Skinner
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Edo period Japan and the untouchable brother of the Shogun, the villainous Lord Naritsugu (played wonderfully by Smap member Goro Inagaki), is out of control and a group of samurai (and a wandering bandit) set out to assassinate Naritsugu before he rises too high and things get far worse. Laying a trap for him and his guards the group of assassins must fight through hundreds of of men in order to get to him. In their efforts to kill him they employ complex tactics and ingenious contraptions but it is their tenacity that is perhaps their greatest strength.
13 Assassins is based on a true story and is also a remake of an under-seen but exceptional 1963 film of the same name by Eiichi Kudo. Kudo’s original was the first film in a loose trilogy with The Great Killing and 11 Assassins. Although The Great Killing is often considered his masterpiece, perhaps...
13 Assassins is based on a true story and is also a remake of an under-seen but exceptional 1963 film of the same name by Eiichi Kudo. Kudo’s original was the first film in a loose trilogy with The Great Killing and 11 Assassins. Although The Great Killing is often considered his masterpiece, perhaps...
- 11/2/2010
- by Craig Skinner
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
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