“Consider yourself lucky, At least you can die.”
Japanese director Takashi Miike downplays his pride about having made his 100th film with “Blade of the Immortal”, and indeed, whether they are 100 or 50 or 20, what counts is the quality of the body of work one has made over the years. And while there may have been weaker entries, the overall impression Miike’s films leave behind is one of versatility, creativity and provocation, since, even with an average of six to seven films per year none of his works feel as if they have been churned out. Instead, we witness the film of a true auteur, one who works fast and is unafraid of the changing tones and genres he has worked with.
During the 2017 Sitges Film Festival, Miike described how it does not matter to him which film he is working on since he approaches every one...
Japanese director Takashi Miike downplays his pride about having made his 100th film with “Blade of the Immortal”, and indeed, whether they are 100 or 50 or 20, what counts is the quality of the body of work one has made over the years. And while there may have been weaker entries, the overall impression Miike’s films leave behind is one of versatility, creativity and provocation, since, even with an average of six to seven films per year none of his works feel as if they have been churned out. Instead, we witness the film of a true auteur, one who works fast and is unafraid of the changing tones and genres he has worked with.
During the 2017 Sitges Film Festival, Miike described how it does not matter to him which film he is working on since he approaches every one...
- 5/5/2018
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
“What are you, a monster?” asks a man with a completely red-scarred skull who carries two human heads withered and shrouded on his shoulders. He asks this of Manji, a ronin who absorbs a mortal blow but rises from what should be certain death to then strike down his attacker. Takashi Miike, who in adapting Hiroaki Samura’s manga into Blade of the Immortal, knows this kind of material and this genre from front to back, blindfolded and, no doubt, even if one hand were cut off—but doesn't prevent him from having great fun making it.Manji (Japanese star Takuya Kimura) is cursed to immortality after allowing a woman (Hana Sugisaka) he had driven mad—by killing her husband—to be struck down before him. His curse turns into a gift when another wronged young woman, Rin (also Sugisaka), seeks him to avenge the destruction of her family and her dojo.
- 11/3/2017
- MUBI
“What are you, a monster?” asks a man with a completely red-scarred skull who carries two human heads withered and shrouded on his shoulders. He asks this of Manji, a ronin who absorbs a mortal blow but rises from what should be certain death to then strike down his attacker. Takashi Miike, who in adapting Hiroaki Samura’s manga into Blade of the Immortal, knows this kind of material and this genre from front to back, blindfolded and, no doubt, even if one hand were cut off—but doesn't prevent him from having great fun making it.Manji (Japanese star Takuya Kimura) is cursed to immortality after allowing a woman (Hana Sugisaka) he had driven mad—by killing her husband—to be struck down before him. His curse turns into a gift when another wronged young woman, Rin (also Sugisaka), seeks him to avenge the destruction of her family and her dojo.
- 5/22/2017
- MUBI
According to The Wrap, famed Japanese actor Beat Takeshi Kitano has joined the cast of Paramount Pictures live-action adaptation of the hit anime & manga, “Ghost in the Shell”. Starring Scarlett Johansson the adaptation of Masamune Shirow's manga will arrive in theaters on March 31, 2017. In an official press release, Kitano stated, "This film tells the story of mankind in the near future in a unique setting. My role Aramaki is a unique and attractive character. The story revolves around the human relationships of the characters. This film will be stylish and entertaining, which is completely different from the type of movies I direct myself. This excited me and was the reason I decided to participate in this film." Kitano is best known for such films as Battle Royale, The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi and Izo. Rupert Sanders directs the film from a script written by William Wheeler. Johansson stars as 'The Major',...
- 3/3/2016
- ComicBookMovie.com
A remake of Masaki Kobayashi's Harakiri (1962), Takashi Miike's new film Hara-kiri: Death of a Samurai retains much of the original's plot, imagery, and production design; even the sets and props appear to be near-replicas of ones in the 1962 film. And yet Miike's movie is completely its own thing, nothing like Kobayashi's—owing in part to the directors' radically different attitudes toward the subject matter, and to the two films' diametrically-opposed conceptions of space and movement. A big pontificator with an arty style, Kobayashi favored complex sequence shots, dolly-ins from behind, smash zooms, and extremely wide angle lenses that warp the space around the edges of the frame, making it appear as though rooms and bodies are constantly expanding and contracting; his Harakiri is an angry, slow-burn anti-chanbara flick—dramatically heightened, spatially wonky, accusatory.
Miike is no stranger to attacking culturally-ingrained hypocrisy (for just one obvious example, see Izo...
Miike is no stranger to attacking culturally-ingrained hypocrisy (for just one obvious example, see Izo...
- 7/20/2012
- MUBI
The festival really came alive for me for the first time since Omirbaev's Student—not including what's obviously the best film here, but playing in Cannes Classics: Andrey Konchalovskiy's Runaway Train (1985)—with another film about the anguished-to-bursting suffering of students. Only, this was a high school musical gang film by Takashi Miike, For Love's Sake. Set in 1972, cracking with vibrant colors (and one of the handful of films here show on 35mm), images densely cluttered with classroom-alleyway bric-a-brac and as appreciative (and full) of constant brawling as a Raoul Walsh picture, the film takes its source manga and brings high school drama to the level of emotional sincerity and endless violence of the director's time traveling samurai epic, Izo. Each character devotes their love and themselves to one who cannot return that love, setting in motion a series of songs (and fights) pitting bad boys against nerds, bourgeois against orphans,...
- 5/25/2012
- MUBI
Takashi Miike still stands as one of my all-time favorite directors, even though the quality of his recent output has somewhat diminished. It isn't easy to pick one film from his vast oeuvre that stands out as his absolute best, but after some thorough soul-searching 46-Okunen no Koi is the film that survived all scrutiny. It's and arthouse flick, it has dancing, gay prison inmates and space rockets: vintage Miike in other words. Miike never really made a true "classic" arthouse flick, but between this film and Izo there are enough elements that suggest Miike was aiming for a little more than mere entertainment with these films. While at its very core 46-Okunen no Koi is just a simple whodunnit, there is enough artistic value...
- 1/25/2012
- Screen Anarchy
Peter Kubelka's Schwechater (1958)
Filmmaker Paul Clipson, profiled last month on the occasion of his winning a Goldie from the Bay Guardian, presents Commodified Cinema: Art, Advertising, and Commodities in Film today at noon at Sfmoma. Brecht Andersch: "Clipson is on to something here: from its inception, cinema has been seen by hoity toities as the commodified form par excellence, a cultural equivalent to advertising. As time rolls on, the bitter ironies of these notions become painfully evident: due to their relative fragility as art objects when run through a projector, celluloid artworks have never worked as collectible items of envy, and the on-going currency of critique in contemporary art has rendered much of it advertising for shallow, if politically correct ideology. In recent years, the ascendency of digital moving image technologies in all their many forms has been embraced by those with un- or semi-conscious resentment towards the photochemical...
Filmmaker Paul Clipson, profiled last month on the occasion of his winning a Goldie from the Bay Guardian, presents Commodified Cinema: Art, Advertising, and Commodities in Film today at noon at Sfmoma. Brecht Andersch: "Clipson is on to something here: from its inception, cinema has been seen by hoity toities as the commodified form par excellence, a cultural equivalent to advertising. As time rolls on, the bitter ironies of these notions become painfully evident: due to their relative fragility as art objects when run through a projector, celluloid artworks have never worked as collectible items of envy, and the on-going currency of critique in contemporary art has rendered much of it advertising for shallow, if politically correct ideology. In recent years, the ascendency of digital moving image technologies in all their many forms has been embraced by those with un- or semi-conscious resentment towards the photochemical...
- 12/8/2011
- MUBI
"Romanian films set in the era after the fall of Communism suggest the nation suffers a hell of a hangover from the ideology," writes Steve Erickson in Gay City News. "For instance, Corneliu Porumboiu's Police, Adjective attacks draconian drug laws left over from the old regime. Tuesday, After Christmas presents a very different vision of Romania. Its characters can afford to buy expensive Christmas gifts; one of them picks up a 3,300 Euro telescope. It may not be entirely accurate to call the film apolitical, but the most political thing about it is its avoidance of Eastern European miserabilism and its depiction of people who could be living much the same lifestyles in Western Europe."
Damon Smith introduces an interview with director Radu Muntean for Filmmaker: "Tuesday, After Christmas, which premiered at Cannes last year, opens on a dreamy scene: sunlight bathes a naked couple, middle-aged Paul (Mimi Branescu) and pretty,...
Damon Smith introduces an interview with director Radu Muntean for Filmmaker: "Tuesday, After Christmas, which premiered at Cannes last year, opens on a dreamy scene: sunlight bathes a naked couple, middle-aged Paul (Mimi Branescu) and pretty,...
- 5/26/2011
- MUBI
A question for you: how do you deal with contradictions in a director's filmography? The question becomes more complicated when talking about "workman" filmmakers like Japanese maverick Takashi Miike or Johnnie To (or, going back, of course, Howard Hawks, Raoul Walsh, William Wellman, and the lesser known)—with such prodigious output, how do audiences, critics, and the artist-workers themselves understand the instances of one film project contradicting another?
How, in the case of To, do we talk about Election and Triad Election (a.k.a. Triad Election)—critical indictments of violent genre cinema—when those films are followed up by Exiled, which proceeds to indulge those very same conventions? Or, in the case of the director of the subject of this piece, how does one look at 2004's withering time traveling anti-violence treatise Izo, and then see, several films later, 13 Assassins—as classical or old fashioned a samurai film as there ever was?...
How, in the case of To, do we talk about Election and Triad Election (a.k.a. Triad Election)—critical indictments of violent genre cinema—when those films are followed up by Exiled, which proceeds to indulge those very same conventions? Or, in the case of the director of the subject of this piece, how does one look at 2004's withering time traveling anti-violence treatise Izo, and then see, several films later, 13 Assassins—as classical or old fashioned a samurai film as there ever was?...
- 4/29/2011
- MUBI
Dread Central recently showcased The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s upcoming program Shinjuku Outlaw: 13 Films By Takashi Miike here. The visionary director was slated to make a rare Us appearance at the festival to introduce a few of his films as well as conduct a Q&A.
Sadly, due to the recent events in Japan, Miike has had to decline traveling and will be unable to attend the screenings. However, the program will go on as scheduled and remains a rare chance for people to see some of Miike’s impressive work on the big screen.
Once again, here's a rundown of what's playing at the festival:
Wednesday, March 16
9:30 Audition
Thursday, March 17
2:15 The City of Lost Souls
4:30 Shinjuku Triad Society
7:00 13 Assassins
10:00 Fudoh: The New Generation
Friday, March 18
1:00 Ley Lines
3:15 Izo
6:00 The Bird People In China
8:40 Ichi The Killer
Saturday, March...
Sadly, due to the recent events in Japan, Miike has had to decline traveling and will be unable to attend the screenings. However, the program will go on as scheduled and remains a rare chance for people to see some of Miike’s impressive work on the big screen.
Once again, here's a rundown of what's playing at the festival:
Wednesday, March 16
9:30 Audition
Thursday, March 17
2:15 The City of Lost Souls
4:30 Shinjuku Triad Society
7:00 13 Assassins
10:00 Fudoh: The New Generation
Friday, March 18
1:00 Ley Lines
3:15 Izo
6:00 The Bird People In China
8:40 Ichi The Killer
Saturday, March...
- 3/15/2011
- by Carnell
- DreadCentral.com
Anyone who knows anything about modern Japanese cinema will tell you that no one makes as interesting a film as Takashi Miike. One of the originators of the wave of sex and violence-crammed titles commonly referred to as “Asian Extreme,” Miike made his mark on the worldwide stage due to such films as Audition, Ichi The Killer, Izo, Visitor Q, and the new 13 Assassins.
Miike’s praises have been sung by the likes of Quentin Tarantino (who appeared in Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django) and Eli Roth (who cast the non-English-speaking director in Hostel). In Japan Miike is something of a modern legend known for his films which feature themes and characters that exhibit a strong sense of childhood nostalgia as well as a glorification of friendship and traditional family units both normal and perverse. What impresses one most about Miike, though, is not only how creative his films are...
Miike’s praises have been sung by the likes of Quentin Tarantino (who appeared in Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django) and Eli Roth (who cast the non-English-speaking director in Hostel). In Japan Miike is something of a modern legend known for his films which feature themes and characters that exhibit a strong sense of childhood nostalgia as well as a glorification of friendship and traditional family units both normal and perverse. What impresses one most about Miike, though, is not only how creative his films are...
- 3/10/2011
- by Carnell
- DreadCentral.com
0742 Confessions (Tetsuya Nakashima, Japan)
Here’s a film that, in away, people will eat up because the filmmaker knows exactly what he’s doing to what intended effect. What he’s doing is presenting the confessions of a teacher and several elementary school students embroiled in a cyclical, nested scheme of murder and revenge. It starts with a teacher announcing to her class she is quitting, then saying that the accidental death of her daughter was actually caused by two students, who she then obliquely identifies and tells them she’s secretly infected their milk with a disease. And it only gets worse from there. Nakashima’s film is a relentless montage, wall to wall hand-held by voice-over and accompanying emo music, that grotesquely exposes, to a probably unintended absurdly humorous degree, the murderous solipsism of elementary school. The initial evocation seems brilliant, a cacophonous tableau of a school room overripe with distracted students,...
Here’s a film that, in away, people will eat up because the filmmaker knows exactly what he’s doing to what intended effect. What he’s doing is presenting the confessions of a teacher and several elementary school students embroiled in a cyclical, nested scheme of murder and revenge. It starts with a teacher announcing to her class she is quitting, then saying that the accidental death of her daughter was actually caused by two students, who she then obliquely identifies and tells them she’s secretly infected their milk with a disease. And it only gets worse from there. Nakashima’s film is a relentless montage, wall to wall hand-held by voice-over and accompanying emo music, that grotesquely exposes, to a probably unintended absurdly humorous degree, the murderous solipsism of elementary school. The initial evocation seems brilliant, a cacophonous tableau of a school room overripe with distracted students,...
- 9/16/2010
- MUBI
An added bonus of discovering Takashi Miike’s films on DVD is following the director’s progress through special-feature interviews, which are often as entertaining as the films themselves. A deadpan, musing presence, Miike is one of the great characters of recent home viewing. Though sounding more mature with each passing year (having come a long way from the interview conducted for the DVD of Audition [1999; interview 2000], in which he dressed up like a skater punk because “the youth of Japan have this game nowadays...where they beat up men on the street who look old; and so, I am trying to look younger”), Miike has retained the quality of sounding pleasantly adrift on the sea of filmmaking, coming to each project without prejudice and discovering cinema as he goes along. (Another memorable moment, when asked about the absurdist liberties he took with the purportedly realist Deadly Outlaw: Rekka [2002]: “It...
- 6/12/2010
- MUBI
Cannes 2010 Coverage
David Cairns
The Forgotten: Trigger Happy Punks
The Forgotten: Mood Swings
The Forgotten: Seduced and Abandoned
Adrian Curry
Movie Poster of the Week: "Guns"
Movie Poster of the Week: "Tentacles"
Movie Poster of the Week: "Tropical Malady"
Movie Poster of the Week: "La religieuse"
Daniel Kasman
Image of the Day. Records of Material Objects in the Cinema #1
R.I.P. William Lubtchansky
Images of the Day. Ideal Couples
Cannes 2010. Favorite Moments: Days 1 & 2
Cannes 2010. An Actor-Director and His Women: "Tournée" (Mathieu Amalric, France)
Cannes 2010. 3-Wall Realism: "Tuesday, After Christmas" (Radu Muntean, Romania)
Cannes 2010: Sincere Love: "The Strange Case of Angelica" (Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal)
Cannes 2010. Favorite Moments: Day 3
Cannes 2010: A Devil without the Details: "Aurora" (Cristi Puiu, Romania)
Cannes 2010. Love-Hate Relationships: "Au petite bonheur" (Marcel L’Herbier, France, 1946)
Cannes 2010. Playful Protest: "Hands Up" (Romain Goupil, France)
Cannes 2010. Favorite Moments: Day 4
Cannes 2010. Today's Quiet City: "I Wish I Knew" (Jia Zhangke,...
David Cairns
The Forgotten: Trigger Happy Punks
The Forgotten: Mood Swings
The Forgotten: Seduced and Abandoned
Adrian Curry
Movie Poster of the Week: "Guns"
Movie Poster of the Week: "Tentacles"
Movie Poster of the Week: "Tropical Malady"
Movie Poster of the Week: "La religieuse"
Daniel Kasman
Image of the Day. Records of Material Objects in the Cinema #1
R.I.P. William Lubtchansky
Images of the Day. Ideal Couples
Cannes 2010. Favorite Moments: Days 1 & 2
Cannes 2010. An Actor-Director and His Women: "Tournée" (Mathieu Amalric, France)
Cannes 2010. 3-Wall Realism: "Tuesday, After Christmas" (Radu Muntean, Romania)
Cannes 2010: Sincere Love: "The Strange Case of Angelica" (Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal)
Cannes 2010. Favorite Moments: Day 3
Cannes 2010: A Devil without the Details: "Aurora" (Cristi Puiu, Romania)
Cannes 2010. Love-Hate Relationships: "Au petite bonheur" (Marcel L’Herbier, France, 1946)
Cannes 2010. Playful Protest: "Hands Up" (Romain Goupil, France)
Cannes 2010. Favorite Moments: Day 4
Cannes 2010. Today's Quiet City: "I Wish I Knew" (Jia Zhangke,...
- 6/2/2010
- MUBI
To begin with the obvious: Izo is one of the most difficult works of art to be made in recent times. Viewers complain that it’s overlong and incoherent—and, in their defense, it often feels designed that way. In scene after scene for more than two hours, a samurai finds himself in a strange new landscape, encounters some odd person or people, and then kills them with his sword. The film is pure theme and variation, deliberately lacking consistent rhythm or sense of progression that would allow you to enjoy it casually. Still, nearly every sequence boasts some fascinating juxtaposition—between character and decor, between dialogue and action, in the way images are ordered—that makes it consistently striking to watch, if something of a slog to keep up with. Even admirers say it seems to last for days.
Closer viewing—or, for most Westerners, a bit of research...
Closer viewing—or, for most Westerners, a bit of research...
- 5/10/2010
- MUBI
To begin with the obvious: Izo is one of the most difficult works of art to be made in recent times. Viewers complain that it’s overlong and incoherent—and, in their defense, it often feels designed that way. In scene after scene for more than two hours, a samurai finds himself in a strange new landscape, encounters some odd person or people, and then kills them with his sword. The film is pure theme and variation, deliberately lacking consistent rhythm or sense of progression that would allow you to enjoy it casually. Still, nearly every sequence boasts some fascinating juxtaposition—between character and decor, between dialogue and action, in the way images are ordered—that makes it consistently striking to watch, if something of a slog to keep up with. Even admirers say it seems to last for days.
Closer viewing—or, for most Westerners, a bit of research...
Closer viewing—or, for most Westerners, a bit of research...
- 5/10/2010
- MUBI
Takashi Miike's body of work encompasses the most diverse approaches to filmmaking of any director alive today, from direct-to-video police dramas to avant-garde art movies. On top of this, Miike seems to make no distinction between modes of filmmaking—not only from project to project but within each film itself. His closest American equivalent might be Quentin Tarantino, who shares a wildly egalitarian view of film history, but Miike is almost unique among living filmmakers in that he advances this view within a traditional studio system. Where Tarantino, who makes a film every few years, is expected to produce Art, Miike, who releases anywhere from two to seven in a given year, can operate below such scrutiny. Forgoing Art, Miike has built a career at the intersection of work and play.
And yet Miike's experience in the art world (working with one of Hou Hsiao-hsien's producers on Izo,...
And yet Miike's experience in the art world (working with one of Hou Hsiao-hsien's producers on Izo,...
- 3/29/2010
- MUBI
Curious to know what frightful films and devilish discs will be available to view in the privacy of your own digital dungeon this week? Fango's got you covered.
Below the jump you'll find the full list of titles arriving in-stores this Tuesday, August 11, 2009 in our weekly version of the famous Fangoria Chopping List - updated with all the last-minute additions and deletions.
Note: Clickable links lead to Amazon.com
Alien Tresspass - Image DVD & Bd
A flying saucer, ray guns, body snatching and a one-eyed monster from outer space! It’s all here in this action-packed sci-fi adventure! Eric McCormack stars as an astronomer who gets possessed by a friendly alien bent on saving our humble planet. But even with the help of a lovely diner waitress, is he any match for the Ghota, a one-eyed evil alien on a murderous rampage?
Bad Boy Bubby (Bd)
L.A. Weekly called it "disturbing and compelling,...
Below the jump you'll find the full list of titles arriving in-stores this Tuesday, August 11, 2009 in our weekly version of the famous Fangoria Chopping List - updated with all the last-minute additions and deletions.
Note: Clickable links lead to Amazon.com
Alien Tresspass - Image DVD & Bd
A flying saucer, ray guns, body snatching and a one-eyed monster from outer space! It’s all here in this action-packed sci-fi adventure! Eric McCormack stars as an astronomer who gets possessed by a friendly alien bent on saving our humble planet. But even with the help of a lovely diner waitress, is he any match for the Ghota, a one-eyed evil alien on a murderous rampage?
Bad Boy Bubby (Bd)
L.A. Weekly called it "disturbing and compelling,...
- 8/9/2009
- by no-reply@fangoria.com (James Zahn)
- Fangoria
As Japanese directors go, you don’t get more prolific, controversial, or downright talented as Takashi Miike. The guy is an amazingly flexible and incredibly gifted director, but he’s also one hell of a freaky dinky dude, and has had his sure of movies where no one “got” or indeed, liked. (”Sukiyaki Western Django”, anyone?) His latest probably won’t require Miike tapping into that freaky dinky side of his personality, because it looks like a straightforward action epic set in the time of the Samurai called “Thirteen Assassins”. Then again, this is Miike… According to THR, Miike’s latest would be set in the time of Japan’s Shoguns, and concerns 13 assassins who are hired to kill an evil lord. But to do so, they’ll have to get past the evil lord’s legion of bodyguards that have our merry band of assassins outnumbered by 10 to 1. Obviously...
- 5/12/2009
- by Nix
- Beyond Hollywood
- The Great Yokai War The Great Yokai War is Japanese wild man Takashi Miike’s big-budget attempt to create the Asian equivalent of Time Bandits for his children’s generation. The plot has to do with mythical creatures called Yokai that are dismayed by the selfishness of humans and, as a result, the war that breaks out between them to decide the fate of humanity. But is it the Yokai who will make that decision or a lone little boy chosen as humanity’s savior? I had already written a capsule review giving a list of reasons why I didn’t like this film until it occurred to me what the real problem was. This is a film that was created for kids and I’m no longer 10 years old. I’m also a fan of Miike’s work in general and simply wasn’t expecting this kind of tame F/X driven fairytale.
- 7/25/2006
- IONCINEMA.com
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