-SPOILER WARNING-
Ley Lines is the last part of Miike Takashi's Triad Society trilogy. It deals with one of the director's most constant themes: The Chinese community in Japan. Three first generation Japanese teenagers, born from Chinese parents, decide to leave their hometown, where they don't fit, for Tokyo. There, they meet several characters: a drug maker, played by Sho Aikawa a Takashi's regular, and his African mate, a Chinese born prostitute and a yakuza boss, also Chinese, played by the chameleonic actor Nakenaka Naoto also seen in films such as Gonin and Shall we dance?. It is lighter, funnier and less violent than the other two trilogy's films. Its main concern is to show the difficulties that these people have for integration in Japanese society, and their search for an identity. This is something that Takashi has already tackled in other films such as Dead or Alive and Shinjuku Triad Society. Their small countryside village, where they were born, is probably a too Japanese environment. Even the cosmopolitan city of Tokyo does not satisfy them and they start making plans to travel to Brazil. This is a very interesting and ironic choice as Brazil was the destination of many Japanese emigrants at the turn of the century, a subject explored by Tizuka Yamasaki in her film "Gaijin". Also, the main character in Kurosawa's "Record of a Living Being" plans to move to Brazil with his reluctant family for fear of a nuclear war. Furthermore, Sao Paulo has the largest Japanese community outside of Japan.
The film raises questions about how Japan is responding to the influx of Asian immigrants and how these are taken over the Japanese yakuza illegal activities (the running of soapland clubs, pachinko shops and drugs). The area of Shinjuku, once a traditional yakuza feud, is now in the hands of the Chinese triads. Does this mean that proper jobs are only restricted to the Japanese? The Chinese yakuza boss is a clear example of this inability to integrate in Japanese society. His yearning for the motherland is too great. He only finds peace of mind when told Traditional Chinese children stories. He is ruthless if he believes these stories are not "authentic" Chinese stories by killing the storyteller. The last shot of the film is an impressive metaphor of this theme of identity search. Starting as close-up of one of the teenagers and the prostitute in a boat, the camera pulls back and flies away from them who are seen drifting in the middle of the ocean. Miike Takashi is a director that likes trying different film techniques. There is a brilliant hand-held camera sequence as the teenagers are trying to sell drugs in the middle of Shinjuku. This cinema-verity sequence shows to its full the exhilarating, bubbling street scene of this area as well as its growing ethnic diversity. It now ranks alongside other world's hot spots such as London's Soho, New York's Times Square, Paris' Latin Quarter and Barcelona's Barrio Chino. Also Takashi likes breaking with some sexual taboos. In all of his films I have seen he acknowledges the existence of people with a rather peculiar sexual taste, without making any judgement on them. So the prostitute shares a bed with the three teenagers and, out of compassion for one of them, has sex with all of them. This does not seem to cause any problems between the boys. Another sequence involves one the of prostitute's customer who likes to peek inside her vagina. For that purpose he uses some sort of surgical equipment to keep her vagina wide open while he is taking a look. Here, there is a hilarious point of view shot of her vagina showing the man's childish expression of amazement and awe.
Ley Lines is the last part of Miike Takashi's Triad Society trilogy. It deals with one of the director's most constant themes: The Chinese community in Japan. Three first generation Japanese teenagers, born from Chinese parents, decide to leave their hometown, where they don't fit, for Tokyo. There, they meet several characters: a drug maker, played by Sho Aikawa a Takashi's regular, and his African mate, a Chinese born prostitute and a yakuza boss, also Chinese, played by the chameleonic actor Nakenaka Naoto also seen in films such as Gonin and Shall we dance?. It is lighter, funnier and less violent than the other two trilogy's films. Its main concern is to show the difficulties that these people have for integration in Japanese society, and their search for an identity. This is something that Takashi has already tackled in other films such as Dead or Alive and Shinjuku Triad Society. Their small countryside village, where they were born, is probably a too Japanese environment. Even the cosmopolitan city of Tokyo does not satisfy them and they start making plans to travel to Brazil. This is a very interesting and ironic choice as Brazil was the destination of many Japanese emigrants at the turn of the century, a subject explored by Tizuka Yamasaki in her film "Gaijin". Also, the main character in Kurosawa's "Record of a Living Being" plans to move to Brazil with his reluctant family for fear of a nuclear war. Furthermore, Sao Paulo has the largest Japanese community outside of Japan.
The film raises questions about how Japan is responding to the influx of Asian immigrants and how these are taken over the Japanese yakuza illegal activities (the running of soapland clubs, pachinko shops and drugs). The area of Shinjuku, once a traditional yakuza feud, is now in the hands of the Chinese triads. Does this mean that proper jobs are only restricted to the Japanese? The Chinese yakuza boss is a clear example of this inability to integrate in Japanese society. His yearning for the motherland is too great. He only finds peace of mind when told Traditional Chinese children stories. He is ruthless if he believes these stories are not "authentic" Chinese stories by killing the storyteller. The last shot of the film is an impressive metaphor of this theme of identity search. Starting as close-up of one of the teenagers and the prostitute in a boat, the camera pulls back and flies away from them who are seen drifting in the middle of the ocean. Miike Takashi is a director that likes trying different film techniques. There is a brilliant hand-held camera sequence as the teenagers are trying to sell drugs in the middle of Shinjuku. This cinema-verity sequence shows to its full the exhilarating, bubbling street scene of this area as well as its growing ethnic diversity. It now ranks alongside other world's hot spots such as London's Soho, New York's Times Square, Paris' Latin Quarter and Barcelona's Barrio Chino. Also Takashi likes breaking with some sexual taboos. In all of his films I have seen he acknowledges the existence of people with a rather peculiar sexual taste, without making any judgement on them. So the prostitute shares a bed with the three teenagers and, out of compassion for one of them, has sex with all of them. This does not seem to cause any problems between the boys. Another sequence involves one the of prostitute's customer who likes to peek inside her vagina. For that purpose he uses some sort of surgical equipment to keep her vagina wide open while he is taking a look. Here, there is a hilarious point of view shot of her vagina showing the man's childish expression of amazement and awe.