2010 Yakuza Film Wrap Up

It's time to wrap up 2010 with the best and worst of the Yakuza films reviewed this year.  Six films have been reviewed this year, and here is the list:

6. Yakuza Zombie.  A bumbling low-level Yakuza who is double crossed and killed is reanimated by the spirit of a vengeful Yakuza.  It wasn't an outright obvious comedy, but it was pretty preposterous, so I'm assuming it's a comedy, but you just can't tell;  that worked against it - it's too ridiculous to be a completely serious movie, but there is very little straight comedy, so it's hard to figure what to make of it.  A solid cast, a goofy plot and low budget (as in, I couldn't tell if it was made for video or made for network TV), Yakuza Zombie pulls up the rear for the Rundown's reviewed films.

5. Another Lonely Hitman.  Not the worst I've seen this year, but the painfully slow pace really hobbled this one for me.  Short on action, long on non-action - it's trying to be a hipster art film when it's just a Yakuza film.  I don't really know if the Yakuza genre lends itself to artsy character study, but it didn't really do it for me - in this case, it didn't put itself in one genre or the other strongly enough, so you're sort of left with a Yakuza film that has long scenes of stage-setting and character study.  Because it's one of the bridges between the old school and new school of Yakuza films, it's worth a look, but don't get your hopes up too much.

4. Wild Criminal.  Wild Criminal straddles the line between crime drama (like Gonin) and Yakuza film - no stereotypical scenes of Yakuza in their Yakuza office sitting around smoking and yelling at eachother across a table, this is mostly the outer reaches - the Yakuza-run clubs and casinos.  As usual both Ozawa Hitoshi and Riki Takeuchi deliver the goods, and there is a good twist at the end that I feel like I should have seen coming, but didn't, so kudos to the director or scriptwriter there.  Basically this is a standard Yakuza movie with a crime-drama bent, and probably easier for the average movie buff to digest because there aren't as many cultural quirks to confuse the viewer not familiar with Japan.

3. Like a Dragon.  Takashi Miike does his thing again with a Yakuza movie based on a video game, and although this is normally a recipe for disaster, Miike pulls it off almost brilliantly (note: almost), with the help of a bad ass Kitamura Kazuki, and the absolutely over-the-top Kishitani Goro.  Kishitani is the biggest show stealing bad guy since Jack Nicholson in the original Batman, and maybe even more so.  This one has respectable production value, although it looks like nearly all of it was filmed on a soundstage, but that doesn't take away from anything - what does is the ridiculously convoluted plot.  I had to watch it three times to get it all straight - I suppose if you've played the videogame it already makes sense, but for the rest of you, you can read the Yakuza Film Rundown review, where I break it all down.

2. Shinjuku Incident.  I'm sure this has been described as "Scarface in Tokyo", and that's right - Shinjuku Incident is a near epic.  Having seen Jackie Chan in so many goofy roles I was blown away - maybe that's my fault for not seeing any of his serious stuff before (and I'm sure neither has any other average Joe, so fuck off), but Jackie was brilliant, as was the entire Chinese cast.  Surprisingly Masaya Kato brought very little energy to the role, and after seeing him in movies like Brother, Blood Heat, and Agitator, I expected a lot more, because I know he can deliver - so who gets the blame? The director? Masaya himself?  Not sure, but it was passable but not above and beyond like I would have normally expected.  I was also a little disappointed that Jackie Chan wasn't more of a bad guy, in the end he held on to his good guy image.  That aside, Shinjuku Incident was a great movie, and I watched it three or four times in the space of three weeks while writing the original review - it was that good.  Rent or buy, do whatever you want, just see it.

1. Graveyard of Honor.  Graveyard of Honor, directed by Takashi Miike, deserves the number one spot - it's brutal, violent, disturbing, and damn near perfect.  I first saw it in Japan in 2004, and watched it three times before returning it to the rental place.  Kishitani Goro owns the role of Ishimatsu in a terrifying display of what should be an award winning example of method acting.  Not only is he completely believable as a brutal psychopathic Yakuza, and composes the nuances of the near-emotionless demon perfectly, but he becomes Ishimatsu.

The rest of the cast can't be sold short, either - Miki Ryosuke is a great supporting actor, and Arimori Narimi is perfect as Ishimatsu's pathetic and abused lover.  If you only see one Yakuza movie in the next 12 months, it should be Graveyard of Honor - It is a grand display of Takashi Miike and Kishitani Goro's skills as filmmaker and actor, respectively.  Graveyard of Honor has so many underlying themes and nuances, it takes multiple viewings to take them all in.

Some probably see it as little more than a showcase for violence, but in the big picture, there is so much more, so get it on Netflix or buy it now!

That's the wrap up for 2010, see you next year!

Yakuza Zombie (2001)

These days, zombies are everywhere, and back in 2001 they even invaded the Yakuza.  Since I missed Halloween, the subject of this Yakuza Film Rundown is fittingly Yakuza Zombie (実録外伝　ゾンビ極道), directed by Sasaki Hirohisa. This is also my entry to the Wildgrounds 2010 Japanese blogathon, since this time around it involves Japanese cinema.

Ultra-low budget and presumably straight-to-video, Yakuza Zombie does serve as a worthwhile shot of comedic junk food for a slow day, and despite being low-budget junk food, it still manages to put together a respectable cast, including Sugata Shun (Ichi the Killer, Kill Bill, The Last Samurai, and Graveyard of Honor), Ozawa Hitoshi (Boiling Point, Dead or Alive, and Gozu), and Ehara Shu (Dead or Alive, Score).

The Plot.

Yakuza Zombie opens with an introduction to a mysterious Yakuza graveyard deep in the forest, and a story of the baddest Yakuza of them all, Naruo Ryuuji (shown in cut scenes played by Ozawa Hitoshi).  Naruo Ryuuji was a fearless killer who eventually got into heroin and, exactly like Ishimatsu Rikuo in Takashi Miike's Graveyard of Honor, eventually leaps to his death from the top of a prison, claiming he'll be back.  I'm assuming this is a reference to real life crazy Yakuza Ishikawa Rikio, whom the original Graveyard of Honor was based on.  It's established that the corpse of the fierce Yakuza Ryuuji is buried in the graveyard beneath a marker with the Japanese characters "Jingi" (Honor), and then we are taken to the modern day.

Our zombie tale starts with middle-aged bumbling loser Oba Kei'ichi (also played by Ozawa Hitoshi), a member of the Mishima yakuza gang, not to mention the perennial butt of jokes and ridicule from his Yakuza compatriots.  Oba's boss, Miyamoto Kenji (played by one of my top five yakuza film actors, Sugata Shun), is no less forgiving of Oba's shortcomings as a yakuza, but doesn't seem to know what to do with him.  Miyamoto himself is a tad bumbling, and doesn't seem to know exactly what he's doing at any given moment, and fortunately Sugata Shun gives the character of Miyamoto a touch of comedic flair that helps float the movie.

When things start to go bad and a gang war seems to be on the horizon, Oba decides to flee with his pregnant deaf wife Kaori (as if being pregnant wasn't enough), but they are caught in the act of fleeing, and Oba is forced into assassinating the head of the rival Kawabata gang in return for his wife.  He attacks the yakuza boss in a hot spring with a knife, killing him, (in a particularly good assassination scene) however he is double crossed by Miyamoto, who has him gunned down on the spot.  Oba's friend Takada, played by Ehara Shu, is forced to take Oba's body and bury it in the creepy old Yakuza graveyard, and this is where the problems start.  Takada starts digging up Naruo Ryuuji's old grave, and a creepy old lady appears, warning him not to bury anyone in Ryuuji's grave.  Finding herself ignored by the Yakuza (and rightly so), she eventually attacks him, and Takada panics and kills her with his knife, and buries them both in Ryuuji's grave.  Her spraying blood soaks Naruo Ryuuji's "Jingi" gravestone with a foreboding splash.

All of the blood apparently awakens Naruo Ryuuji's restless soul, and he reanimates Oba's corpse.  Oba is in there somewhere, but for the moment, Ryuuji  is in control, and the zombie breaks the surface of the grave, and climbs out, ready to make the people who double crossed him pay.  The Yakuza plans didn't seem to have a contingency for a zombie attack.  The now indestructible Oba zombie is going to go on the warpath using his hands, knives, guns, and baseball bats to clean up the Yakuza.  A comparison could be made here between this movie and Takashi Miike's 1997 film Full Metal Yakuza - a bumbling Yakuza is killed and then reanimated into a vengeance wreaking machine.  And since Full Metal Yakuza came first, I guess there is a chance that some liberties were taken with the idea for Yakuza Zombie.

The one thing going for Yakuza Zombie is the acting - frankly everyone is great, granted Ozawa doesn't do much acting after the first 20 minutes beyond herkey-jerkey staggering and croaking out lines as a zombie (so he really isn't able to show off his acting chops, which is too bad since per the Japanese Wikipedia, apparently his portrayals of Yakuza are so realistic that young Yakuza are shown his films as sort of educational videos) .  But for a straight to video B-movie, the actors seem to take things serious enough for it to work, but not so serious as to make an already ridiculous plot ludicrous (the end result being a horror/comedy/crime drama).  All of the yakuza film conventions are followed, and the non-zombiefied parts are squarely in the Yakuza film genre, and if you like typical scenes of groups of Yakuza arguing and plotting in their offices, this movie delivers.  Lots of typical Yakuza dialogue and scenes for any fan of the genre.

Normally this is about where I pick out the biggest WTF moment, but in this case most of the movie is just one big WTF moment.  That being said, the confrontation between zombie Oba and Takada near the end, set to a goofy feel-good guitar track, was, well, goofy.

The Violent Rundown. 

As usual I put my sanity on the line to tally up the violence (which I'm sure I'll do something with at some point), and although it was tough to count since you can shoot, beat, and stab a zombie all day long to no real effect, I came up with as best a count as I could.  The result is: Once scene of hardcore drug use, four scenes of violence against women (mostly slapping and strangling, and one possible rape - it's not terribly clear), four stabbings (Knives also played a big part in this movie), four beatings, at least two fights, and about ten or so shootings, and two broken necks.

The Final Verdict.

Yakuza Zombie is sort of a cross between a horror/comedy, and a straight Yakuza film that happens to have a zombie appear every now and then.  So it's safe to say that if you like zombies, or if you like Yakuza films, or if you are one of those people who just have to see every Japanese movie you can get your hands on no matter how bad, this one might be for you.  It really doesn't measure up to the other four Yakuza films I've reviewed so far, so I have to rank it at the bottom of the list.  However, to try and give it some perspective, I did find it marginally better than the aptly titled Junk, which was also a Yakuza vs. Zombie movie of sorts (in which Ehara Shu also had a part) - albeit more horror and less Yakuza themes.  Yakuza Zombie currently isn't available in the USA outside of the grey market vendors, so unless you are one of those obsessive types listed above, you probably don't need to burn the calories to find it.  After all, I watched it twice for this review, and I'm probably never going to watch it again.  But it did have enough redeeming qualities for me to not need back the 87x2 minutes two viewings took from me - and hey, I'll give anything with Sugata Shun a chance.