Yakuza Apocalypse (2015)

 

Director: Takashi Miike

Screenplay: Yoshitaka Yamaguchi

Cast: Hayato Ichihara as Akira Kageyama; Riko Narumi as Kyoko; Shô Aoyagi as Angus; Kiyohiko Shibukawa as Aratetsu; Ryushin Tei as Killer Priest; Yayan Ruhian as Kyoken (Mad Dog); Masanori Mimoto as Kaeru-kun (The Frog)

Cinema of the Abstract

 

Yakuza Apocalypse is when one refuses to die when shot full of holes because you are a yakuza vampire, and the toughest opponent is in a giant frog costume. Or that Takeshi Miike, used to the crime genre and yakuza tales, returns to the genre in his later career and make an epic work proudly deadpan in how increasingly absurd it is as it goes along. Yakuza Apocalypse is going to be an acquired taste especially at this point Miike’s career, where he gained acclaimed for films like 13 Assassins (2010), because it is a cavalcade of new absurdities followed by a finale which is left unanswered. This is a film which takes itself seriously only to be argued to be a pure joke by the end, set in a town where the recession hit leaving it unstable, the yakuza looking after the place about to devour itself when the noble and kind hearted leader, who also happens to be a vampire, is assassinated in a power shift. This feels like a throwback to a certain type of film from Miike’s direct-to-video era in the nineties, specially the more brazenly pulpier ones like Full Metal Yakuza (1997), and in that context, what could already appeal to a viewer without prior experience as a “wacky” cult film gains more credibility in this knowing how Miike, helped in this film by screenwriter Yoshitaka Yamaguchi, carved a niche for this type of movie that felt a bar higher than others.

With significantly less transgressive (and in places problematic) content from some of those earlier films, Miike’s virtue even without the gems of his more seriously minded tone is being able to juggle tones fully, between being able to be sincere in the moment only to undercut expectations, such as the leader’s food source being former yakuza, imprisoned in a cellar, who spend their time knitting and being treated as if in a reform school for criminals. One of his most loyal members, Akira Kageyama (Hayato Ichihara), is the one yakuza who cannot get a tattoo due to his sensitive skin, which will change when his boss is killed but not without passing on the mantle of yakuza vampire to protect the town. What this becomes after this lengthy set up is a freewheeling mass of pulp storytelling where the time allows it to be fleshed out even when a joke. Clearly this was made as a flex in genre for the sake of genre, apt as this was produced by Nikkatsu, who at this point looked back at their legacy – the constant stream of crime and genre b-films from the fifties and sixties, to their pinku films – and produced films inspired from them in the then-modern era of the 2010s, not throwbacks but modern equivalents. Yakuza Apocalypse feels like what would happen if Seijun Suzuki had not been fired for what he got away with for a film like Branded to Kill (1967), adding here horror, open surrealism and martial arts fight scenes.

And credit to Miike and the production team, they hired martial artists and shoot it well, including the stunt casting of Yayan Ruhian, an Indonesia actor and martial artist who came to prominence through Gareth Evans’ The Raid (2011), here getting to play a striking member of the villainous group who took over the yakuza, if with an eccentric touch that he starts with wearing a nice ironed shirt, glasses and looking like a buff train spotter with a backpack full of maps, one of the many times Yakuza Apocalypse presents its story with seriousness whilst also being sardonic about it. That the film ends with no resolve – a central villain, an actual kappa, disappears with no explanation, or the world ending scenario about a giant kaiju sized frog creature –has happened a few times in his career. Whether it was time, budget or the source material not being fully available, be it Fudoh: The Next Generation (1996) having an open ending, or Dead or Alive (1999) famously ending with the most abrupt shift into worldwide destruction possible, Miike has done this so many times with his career that it is a trademark. It feels on purpose a lot of the time, and there is so much that stands within these films, as here too, where even his more indulgent genre films are more interesting than many. There is a whole series of weird subplots which make this particular case more standout, where an older female yakuza, having betrayed her boss, goes through a Lady Macbeth scenario if she keeps hearing a dripping noise only in her brain and tries growing civilians in a green house, or that Kageyama ends up turning everyone into yakuza vampires, from schoolgirls to young boys who upgrade by removing their hair (and fear) with revenge in their heart and a new afro-perm.

It is, as a film which fits the director’s career, one which would raise an eyebrow for many, for good as well as he still takes the production seriously, still making these broad archetypes have meaning to them even when the scenarios are absurd, such as the female yakuza losing her sanity or Kageyama having to grow up quickly in his role. Even when this is utterly insane, it is depicted with the likes of a frog mascot being the ultimate fighter, who is cast with a competent martial artist who can even fight in a full mascot costume. That one figure emphasizes, even as pure pulp for the sake of entertainment, the little weird details which have been with Miike’s films early in the career, playing to the joke (he struggles down stares) whilst still being credible as a figure in the world itself (including his death stare). Yakuza Apocalypse among Takashi Miike’s films is not a canonical title, but it is one which succeeds if you take it as a pure entertainment spectacle with all its absurdist touches; if you have been a fan of his, aware of how prolific he is and how films in this tone came before, this is a follow up to this in his career again which is successful.

Abstract Spectrum: Deadpan / Wacky

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None