This flick isn't awful, but it's not really great either. I'm unclear as to why exactly it was (re)made. It's too violent to be believable, there are too many guns, there are waaay too many deaths to be even close to making me suspend my disbelief, but the violence is handled so realistically as to not make much sense.
If this movie went over the top into a demented fever dream, cool, but it doesn't. The presentation is so nuts and bolts and kitchen sink the constant ultra violence just doesn't seem at all plausible. It's one of those movies where you wonder where the police are, when a guy strung out on heroin shoots up his apartment in the middle of the day with at least eight handguns (in Japan!). Apparently nobody ever calls the (ever-present and ever-watching) police in Japan. It's just not believable. Sorry.
The tiresome unpleasantness of the main character is also past belief. I suspect any effective crime organization would have taken him down or had him incarcerated at the first stray bullet. Dumb. I'm not saying crazy Yakuza thrillers aren't good, I'm saying this one isn't. Not worth it.
If this movie went over the top into a demented fever dream, cool, but it doesn't. The presentation is so nuts and bolts and kitchen sink the constant ultra violence just doesn't seem at all plausible. It's one of those movies where you wonder where the police are, when a guy strung out on heroin shoots up his apartment in the middle of the day with at least eight handguns (in Japan!). Apparently nobody ever calls the (ever-present and ever-watching) police in Japan. It's just not believable. Sorry.
The tiresome unpleasantness of the main character is also past belief. I suspect any effective crime organization would have taken him down or had him incarcerated at the first stray bullet. Dumb. I'm not saying crazy Yakuza thrillers aren't good, I'm saying this one isn't. Not worth it.