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

Youth Without Youth (2007)

From https://pics.filmaffinity.com/
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Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Screenplay: Francis Ford Coppola

Based on the Novel by Mircea Eliade

Cast: Tim Roth as Dominic Matei; Alexandra Maria Lara as Laura/ Veronica; Bruno Ganz as Professor Stanciulescu; André Hennicke as Josef Rudolf; Marcel Iureș as Professor Giuseppe Tucci; Adrian Pintea as Pandit

Youth Without Youth is an odd film, I won't deny it. Admittedly adapted from a novel by Mircea Eliade, a lot of this curious premise - in which an old lecturer Dominic Matei (Tim Roth) is hit by lightning grows young, can read books by merely looking at time, and becomes a superhuman intelligence - is likely from there, something I will get into later. As much of it though is knowing Francis Ford Coppola made the film without compromise, wrote the film clearly with no compromise and will shot the material like a boss.

He's not made a film since Twixt (2011)¹, part of a trilogy not connected together barring the fact that, returning to cinema briefly, the legendary director of the Godfather trilogy made three films on his own whims having spent over ten years away tending his winery - Tetro (2009) and Twixt, the later an odd experience meant to be a horror film co-edited by viewers but becoming a 3D horror film where Val Kilmer occasionally talks to the ghost of Edgar Allen Poe, were idiosyncratic to say the least, but Youth Without Youth was a sudden return which referenced back to both his virtues and his notoriety of being obsessed with making distinct films.

Starting under Roger Corman and a string of films by the end of the sixties to find his own voice, his career reached its peak in the seventies, not only with the incredible success of the first two Godfather films but The Conversation (1974), before finishing the decade with Apocalypse Now (1979), famously the Vietnam War adaptation of Hearts of Darkness that turned into a warzone on set in its chaos. It's only into the eighties where, while he'd make highly regarded films like One From the Heart (1981) and Rumble Fish (1983), his star started to falter in terms of One from the Heart's disastrous box office success forcing him to have to spend the rest of the eighties recouping its cost. In fact into the early nineties, economic reasons was one of the reasons the divisive third Godfather film was even made, thought at least he also made making Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), which I'll defend barring Keanu Reeves trying an English accent.

From https://www.cinemaclock.com/images/580x326/77/
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By the end of the nineties, whilst The Rainmaker (1997) was more of a John Grisham adaptation than a Coppola film, the Robin Williams family film Jack (1996) was considered a nadir. Returning in 2007, Coppola made both a luscious and frankly bug nuts film, as in Roth plays a man whom as if given a second chance of life, grows young through the thunderbolt of youth, exploring the history of human language, and human intelligence in general, whilst in the midst of Nazi occupied Austria finding himself eyed by Nazis wanting to make superman from his example. Having lost of the love of his life years ago, she'll eventually return as Veronica (Alexandra Maria Lara), almost reincarnated and also hit by lightning, becoming a conduit for ancient female Buddhists and souls that regress to her physical ailment to the beginning of human communication.

It's a difficult film in them to unpack, its source material clearly belonging to magical realism which intermingled World War II drama, a drama about linguistics, romance and tragedy, all alongside an ending which seems like it's going to cop out and say it's all a dream, which it might've all been still, but plays more like a circular story of a man's life that is from an entirely different era of cinema than the 2000s. It's a film, bluntly, where you need to accept the premise entirely or you'd hate it. The first half, set in WWII Romania does calmly take you through the premise, in which the late Bruno Ganz is a doctor fascinated by him during his treatment for the lightning strike, showing slowly the curious abilities and quirks Roth's characters has acquired. The second half onwards however, when it jumps in time over decades with Veronica possessed by spirits, excursions to Buddhist tombs in other countries and a random cameo by Matt Damon, is a further leap to go with. The notable thing is that the source novella author Mircea Eliade, from Romania, was a historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago who wrote about the concept of the religious experience and was, befittingly, fluent in multiple languages. Naturally for someone who wrote fiction and non-fiction work equally, his source material if Youth Without Youth is accurate is a very idiosyncratic work nourished by the kind of esoteric subject matter Eliade studied in his life. Its however subject matter that is an acquired taste for a larger audience, so you as an audience have to come to this particular adaptation with this in mind.

Coppola, mind, has always shot his films with an incredible scale, which can seesaw in terms of the content between the elegant to the opposite spectrum of the hallucinogenic. Both sides are felt with Youth Without Youth, a lush period film which transitions from WWII Romania to over the next few decades to the seventies, all with the tone of a classic period drama. It's a scale appropriate for a film where the film gets surreal, like Tim Roth having a doppelganger he can talk to in both mirrors and his dreams, Coppola really qualifing as deserving the term "cinematic" with his work. It works with Youth Without Youth, the one virtue to take from it that at least its logic makes sense because the world is built enough to make it acceptable. It effectively takes a film like The English Patient (1996), the same period war drama with English speaking actors in exotic locals, but imagines if Ralph Fiennes had psychic powers. The supernatural content has deeper themes however, which is why it still works - Roth, good in the lead, eventually finding himself asking whether his obsession is worth the sacrifice, finding himself also becoming obsessed in the Atomic Age that nukes are going to destroy the world, all whilst his doppelganger argues it's a necessary for the evolution of super humans to take place.

Does Youth Without Youth work? For myself yes, as a curious hybrid. It is, for obvious reasons, very esoteric and wouldn't have won over casual fans of Francis Ford Coppola's work. It is however clearly made by a man who didn't need to get back into the director's seat and, when he decided to, was because he wanted to make this film and as good as possible. As mentioned, he'd make two more films in this unofficial trilogy, none of them connected in the slightest in terms of style or subject matter, but in terms of a director having a short burst of creativity between 2007-2011 where he was still being experimental, Tetro still (as a drama starring Vincent Gallo) with a bold monochrome look and tone having a boldness alongside Youth Without Youth and Twixt. Whilst Youth Without Youth is not abstract, it's certainly engaging.

Abstract Spectrum: Magical Realism/Surreal

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

From https://motionstatereview.files.wordpress.com/
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1) Well, there is an ongoing film project named Distant Vision, which I didn't know about until this review, which has had "proof of concept" screenings at two American education institutions between 2015 and 2015.

Non-Abstract Review: Year of the Nail (2007)

From https://i2.wp.com/newcelluloid.com/wp-content/
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a.k.a. Año uña

Director: Jonás Cuarón

Screenplay: Jonás Cuarón

Cast: Eireann Harper as Molly; Diego Cataño as Diego

Synopsis: Told entirely in photographs, of real people and family of the director, Jonás Cuaron tells a fictional story of a young American college student Molly (Eireann Harper) whose encounter with Mexican teenager Diego (Diego Cataño), whilst she is briefly in his country, leaves him smitten for her.

Alfonso Cuarón is a director I don't necessarily take interest in; the director who has done work in his homeland (Y Tu Mamá También (2001)) to the States (Gravity (2013)), a critical darling with the Netflix approved Roma (2018) just an example of someone whose constant praise in the mainstream unfortunately puts me off without actually judging the work. It's an unfair attitude and I will rectify it one day. (Gravity, though, doesn't work for its heavy handed and empty spectacle especially when not seen on a cinema screen). Here though, I finally am round to a film I've wanted to seen for over ten years, his son Jonás Cuarón making films into the current day too. Year of the Nail is told entirely in photos like Chris Marker's La Jette (1962), real documents in photo form, in montage and with voice over.

It has two different beginnings - an American named Molly is stuck in a lost twenties where she is aimless, unsure what to do with her life but going to Mexico twice, once for her studies and then again out of a desire for sightseeing, which mark a comfort for her to escape this dead-end. The second time introduces her to Diego, as she stays at his family home as a guest; Diego is a hormone driven male fourteen year old, obsessed with sex, intrigued to woo the older American girl, constantly dealing with an ingrown toe nail, interestingly where the English title comes from, but also serious issues like family fragmentation and a grandfather becoming stricken with cancer. Using real photos, rather than staged ones, means occasionally a background face is blurred out, and it ends with a tribute to a past relative, a sense the "actors" included actual Cuarón family in their day-to-day lives, turned into fictional characters. Even Molly herself, actress Eireann Harper, was the girlfriend of the director-screenwriter, who took these images between 2004-5 as the introductory text elaborates, a film built from reality that is emphasised just by the fact the camera used switches from monochrome to colour halfway through.

Year of the Nail weave a lot of interest beyond its style, the story interesting in this frankly problematic love story which yet avoids becoming icky in a natural, inevitable way. It plays on conceptions a great deal too - able to understand Spanish, Molly is aware of how she is perceived as an ignorant American, whilst for Diego and his family, preconceptions of Mexicans is also poked at, particularly as he tries to avoid his family (especially his grandmother) embarrassing him in his misguided attempt to flirt with Molly, which considering his idea is to laze about on the beach all the time can be seen as an immediate failure anyway.  

The film doesn't try to sugar-coat the obvious issue, more so ten years on, of an adult woman and a young teenage boy in a potential romance, especially as the character Molly does flirt with the idea of a relationship before, when he finds a way of meeting her in New York City, she sees the issues that have arisen. I do understand the real concern viewers can have with fictional tales which have these premises, but it's as much an unwanted avoidance of that transgressive issue that, in real life, the beginning of sexuality all of us went through after puberty is one that's very uncomfortable to deal with but should be tackled, especially in lieu to how this relates to the adult world and trying to consider the subject with thoughtfulness. The film doesn't step from why its taboo either, without being remotely explicit barring how much profanity and sex talk Diego himself uses especially in voice over. The subject of adult-teenage relationships and the idea that that they can be consensual for participants, even in a merely fictional realm, can now seen much more as too far, but the truth is I'd rather have a film tackle this subject in this particularly case frankly, and carefully, with the necessary complexity needed. Even if the moments of humour and farce may have become more uncomfortable for some in the last ten years.

Altogether, Year of the Nail was a good surprise, a really interesting experiment in limited resources. A lot of drama is surprisingly found even without moment, a greater sense of creativity required to establish a world, needing multiple photos for one scene to exist; even in mind that these images probably existed already before the idea to make a film did, you still had to find a way to connect them together in editing and careful use of the voice over and dialogue recorded over them, to which Jonás Cuarón never oversteps into heavy handedness in drama or the cultural clash that takes place with the main characters. To establish such a world, you have fleshed out experience of places in Mexico and outside of it like Coney Island in New York City in detail, which you rarely get in cinema due to the ease in using a camera has. Knowing real family is involved in the director's work is great, as is that he doesn't flinch away for details, from a hospital corridor to showing the actual neutering of a pet cat in a veterinarians' in lieu to the Diego family cat having the operation.

Jonás Cuaron manages so much in only less than eighty minutes, a fleshed out premise with emotional weight, that it does become a great representation for me of the fascinating underbelly of cinema that'll be uncovered over the next decade particularly for the maligned late 2000s, where one-offs and experiments are gathering dust on DVD copies waiting another evaluation...or in this case actually seeing the film after taking too long as I did.

From https://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/
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Yurikuma Arashi (2015)

From https://kiddtic.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/yuri-kuma-header.jpg

Director: Kunihiko Ikuhara

Screenplay: Kunihiko Ikuhara and Takayo Ikami

(Voice) Cast: Miho Arakawa (as Ginko Yurishiro); Nozomi Yamane (as Kureha Tsubaki); Yoshiko Ikuta (as Ruru Yurigazaki); Ami Koshimizu (as Konomi Yurikawa); Aoi Yūki (as Mitsuko Yurizono); Aya Endo (as Reia Tsubaki); Junichi Suwabe (as Life Sexy); Kazutomi Yamamoto (as Life Beauty); Kikuko Inoue (as Yuri-Ka Hakonaka); Mariya Ise (as Eriko Oniyama); Mitsuki Saiga (as Life Cool);

A 1000 Anime Crossover

Abstract Spectrum: Fantastique/Surreal

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

After Mawaru Penguindrum (2011),  my introduction to Kunihiko Ikuhara with only his reputation to fed off was an immense, rewarding experience in itself over twenty four episodes. With only twelve episodes here, his follow up Yurikuma Arashi is literally about lesbian bears, a fairytale of love between woman and bear woman that has an almost naive, sincere message of tolerance against homophobia, but something you stay for with its pop surreal artistry and exaggerated, light hearted tone even with serious subject matter like peer pressure and finding one's identity.

Whilst not as surreal as Penguindrum, trying to devalue Yurikama as just an "normal" project for Kunihiko Ikuhara  is absurd considering Ikuhara's worldview is fairytale, bright coloured fantasy with an elasticity to the world, metaphor not only standing in for character emotions but becoming the scenery being said characters. He's a director, alongside the creative team and animators that work on this sort of show, who is blatant in his symbolism but manages to get away with it from the elegance of his aesthetic style, a gorgeousness matched with open eccentricity that's emotionally awarding.

For the full review of this series, follow the link to my other blog 1000 Anime HERE. 

From http://i.imgur.com/FYnIfFW.jpg

1000 Anime Crossover: April 2016

From https://genkinahito.files.wordpress.com/2012/
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#22: Gyo - Tokyo Fish Attack (2012)

Director: Takayuki Hirao

Screenplay: Akihiro Yoshida, Takayuki Hirao

Based on a manga by Junji Ito

(Voice) Cast: Mirai Kataoka (as Kaori); Ami Taniguchi (as Erika); Hideki Abe (as Shirakawa); Hiroshi Okazaki (as Professor Koyanagi); Masami Saeki (as Aki); Takuma Negishi (as Tadashi)

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

Abstract Spectrum: Grotesque/Weird

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

The manga of Junji Ito deserves a cinematic adaption, live action or manga, that does justice to its weird, sometimes disgusting content, firmly making his reputation as a horror manga author through idiosyncratically strange, comic horror stories. His reputation for strangeness, from drawing himself in Uzumaki (1998-9) as a spiral obsessed shell of a  man to writing a manga about raising two pet cats with the same art style of his horror tales begs for an appropriately abstract movie from the work. Gyo the anime does its best, but it just misses out of being as strange aesthetically as the manga itself. It replicates the gross weirdness of the material but in style and structure it's pretty conventional, while doing very well in getting the tone right, an adaptation like the live action take of Uzumaki from 2000 having a better chance at scrapping into the Abstract List.

For the full review, following the link HERE.

From https://i.imgur.com/7srPCSy.jpg

#23: Dead Leaves (2004)

Director: Hiroyuki Imaishi

Screenplay: Takeichi Honda

(Voice) Cast: Kappei Yamaguchi (as Retro); Takako Honda (as Pandy); Yuko Mizutani (as Galactica); 666 (as Mitsuo Iwata); 777 (as Kiyoyuki Yanada); Chinko (as Nobuo Tobita)

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

The first of (hopefully) many tie-in to the 1000 Anime blog and this one, I won't spoil any of the opinions I had and just provide the link to the review HERE.

From http://images.myreviewer.co.uk/fullsize/0000059829.jpg

#24: Yuki Terai - Secrets (2000)

Based on a original premise

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

Abstract Spectrum: Weird

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

One of the more obscurer things I've covered for the 1000 Anime blog, the only segment of this animated short compilation that is unconventional is The Mirror, about the titular protagonist being menaced by her mirror reflections, the sort of thing that could've gotten into the Abstract List for its tone and style but misses out just because of its dated visual appearance, without any distinct character to it more significantly, and missing out of using the premise fully. The rest, which you can read about HERE, is far from abstract and a curiosity only.

1000 Anime Crossover: January 2016

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#15: Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011)

Director: Akiyuki Shinbo

Screenplay: Gen Urobuchi

Voice Cast: Aoi Yūki (as Madoka Kaname); Chiwa Saito (as Homura Akemi); Emiri Katō (as Kyubey); Ai Nonaka (as Kyōko Sakura); Eri Kitamura (as Sayaka Miki); Kaori Mizuhashi as Mami Tomoe and Tatsuya Kaname)

Abstract Spectrum: Fantastique/Surreal

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

Finally seeing the series that caught people by surprise, taking the magical girl trope into darker and more existential territory, it doesn't matter in this case that it's not an abstract work at all. It does have some very unconventional and inspired ideas aesthetically which have importance in telling the story and adding to the emotional content, especially the surrealistic edge of having the monsters of the show based on innocent, childish motifs such as food or the circus. Unbelievably grim, I don't recommend watching Madoka in a  low mood, but after hearing about the show over five years the surprising emotional punch I had from it will be one of the best things of 2016 in terms of first viewings.

For my full view, follow the link HERE.

From http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/galerians/images/b/b2/
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#16: Galerians: Rion (2002)

Director: Masahiko Maesawa

Screenplay: Chinfa Kan

Voice Cast: Akira Ishida (as Rion); Shiho Kikuchi (as Lilia); Akira Ishida (as Cain); Kenichi Suzumura (as Rainheart); Ryoko Kinomiya (as Dorothy); Takehito Koyasu (as Birdman); Yuka Imai (as Rita)

Abstract Spectrum: Grotesque

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

One of the last early 3D anime before Shinji Aramaki's Appleseed (2004) brought up the quality visually of this sort of thing and it became more common - just from Aramaki deciding everything he would make afterwards would be 3D animation - Rion is certainly a forgotten oddity, a videogame adaptation that does suffer from its visual and storytelling limitations. The most compelling thing about the anime is this struggle, although it does have the strange back-story of its Western DVD release including an alternative soundtrack including Slipknot and Mudvayne, thus bringing back memories from my childhood without having even listening to that alternative version.

For my full view, follow the link HERE.

From https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original
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#17: You're Under Arrest! - The Motion Picture (1999)

Director: Junji Nishimura

Screenplay: Masashi Sogo and Seiji Soga

Voice Cast: Akiko Hiramatsu (as Miyuki Kobayakawa); Sakiko Tamagawa (as Natsumi Tsujimoto); Bin Shimada (as Ken Nakajima); Etsuko Kozakura (as Yoriko Nikaido); Ikuya Sawaki (as Inspector Tokuno); Issei Masamune (as Chief)

Abstract Spectrum: None

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

After being introduced to this popular franchise through two terrible anime spin-offs, this was a better way to get into a long running series by way of a beautifully anime, fun action comedy that never gets bogged down by its more serious plot but never becomes mediocre fluff.

For my full view, follow the link HERE.