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Miike Takashi makes several fims a year, and therefore in the list for 2007 we find Sunscarred, Sukiyaki Western Django, Crows: Episode 0 and Like a Dragon. I opt for the last one as No 7 on my list of best Japanese films of 2007, in the first place because I am fond of Miike’s eccentric films, so I feel that at least one film by him should be included. Miike after all still is going strong as one of the most inventive helmers of Japan. And Like a Dragon is entertaining from beginning to end, from the first wail of the electric guitar with which it opens (calling the start of Dead or Alive 1 to mind) to the last rumbles of the big explosion blowing it out.

Like a Dragon was based on a computer game, but that - happily - does not show. We find Miike in classic form, after (in my eyes) weaker and more big budget films as The Great Yokai Wars and Zebraman - although here, too, he works for a larger audience and therefore his trademark kinky sex and gore are absent.

What is it about?
While Tokyo’s Shinjuku is sweltering under a terrible heatwave, former gangster Kazuma Kiryu (Kitamura Kazuki) returns to the streets after 10 years in prison. He is searching for Yumi, his former girlfriend (and presumably, loot she has kept for him). On the way, he finds a young girl who is seeking for Yumi’s sister, a hostess in Kabuki-cho, whom he takes along in “Wolf and cub” style. Before he can go very far, he is met by the psychopatic Majima Goro (Kishitani Goro) who is now leading his old gang and who has a score to settle - for where is the gang’s money that went missing when Kiryu went to prison?

There are three other plotlines: the bank that supposedly holds the gang’s money, is being robbed by a pair of idiots in ski masks, but the vaults are indeed empty. The cops who are facing the robbers in a barbershop next to the bank, are led by the cynical Date Makoto (Matsushige Yutaka) and seem just as inefficient as the robbers.

Two delinquent teenage lovers take advantage of the lethargy due to the heat wave and start robbing shops on a whim: it is easy and the girl wants the money. They are like some young people nowadays who think life is like a computer game and can be “reset” any time, but sadly they learn that reality is different.

Finally, a killer from Korea is lying in ambush for a Japanese politician who will fly in to the area by helicopter that night - supposedly he is the man who has the Goro gang’s money in his hands.

Everything happens in one night, just like in After Dark, the recent novel by Murakami Haruki. And as I said, it is hot, the city has become a heat island where even at night the temperature is unbearable…

What did I like about it?

- Miike is back in violent form
This is a yakuza movie, which means we are in veteran hands with Miike, who is a master of that genre. Yakuza and chinpira, from mean to meanest, petty criminals, bar hostesses, cops who only by chance seem to stand on the good side of the law… in this kind of underworld Miike feels perfectly at home. It is not on the level of Dead or Alive, Fudoh or Ley Lines, but still very good and above all, action-packed and immensely entertaining.

- Goro is a fantastic Miike gangster
The psychopathic Goro wears an eye-patch, sports a gaudy golden suit and carries a golden baseball bat around. He speaks a sort of funny Osaka-dialect, but as a person he is far from funny. He is ultraviolent and on top of that completely emotionless and unfeeling. For the smallest reason he beats up his own men. His favorite way of killing is to hit a baseball into the head of his opponent.

Kiryu, in contrast, is the gangster with the golden heart. Straight from the pages of a body building magazine, he is like a slow volcano when he explodes. Expect a battle of the titans when Goro and Kiryu start their high-energy fight. Both actors, Kishitani Goro and Kitamura Kazuki are old Miike hands and have appeared in several of his films. But Goro is the one who stands out in this flick.

- The stylishness and colorful atmosphere
Shinjuku is like a living organism in this film, and just as gaudily colorful as its characters. One of the lesser characters sticking in memory is the masochistic gun dealer, who encourages Goro to crack his legs a few times between the door before selling him a gun. Wry humor is evident in the bank robbery where both police and robbers cannot stand the heat - the robbers even have to wring out their soaked ski masks. It is all topped off with a finale in the Milennium Tower, where Kiryu’s girlfriend holds the gang’s cash and where the polician is headed in what looks like a military helicopter, swinging low over Shinjuku on its way to delirious doom…

Links

Official website.

Interview with Miike Takashi on Midnight Eye (2001).

Interview with Miike Takashi by Mark Schilling (2003).

Senses of Cinema article on Miike Takashi.

Have you seen Like a Dragon? What did you think about it?