Anyone new to the incredibly prolific Takashi Miike's work might want to think twice about making this startling film their first experience of this truly maverick director. In keeping with Miike's working practice of taking any work that comes his way and then grafting his own sensibilities onto the script, this is at heart a fairly basic yakuza thriller, with a morally ambiguous cop chasing a gang which his lawyer brother has fallen in with. What takes the movie out of the realms of the same-old same-old however, is the utterly unflinching attitude so some of the most sudden and horrific violence seen in today's cinema. And this isn't that nice cool, clean violence so beloved of US cinema - this stuff is nasty, painful and HURTS! That said, the pace is breakneck, the characters are unusual without being just being burdened with stock eccentricities, Miike's sense of humour reveals itself and the most unexpected moments, and his camera is never quite where you expect it to be, making it hard to look away from the screen, whatever he might be showing you! It doesn't have the "Ohmigod" ending of "Dead Or Alive," but if you're not squeamish, now's the time to get on board the Miike bandwagon before he ends up on some Hollywood studio's "new John Woo" shopping list...
Review of Shinjuku Triad Society
