Father Geek here with a peek at the eagerly awaited new film from the fantastic and great Takashi Miike. We've covered this some on the site, but this is a real look at the picture, soooooo if you're a purist that wants NO spoiler images racing thru your skull, you should probably STOP READING NOW!
OK, that's been said and you've been warned so I now assume everyone here wants to know everything our lucky spy BUNTA has to say about The New Graveyard of Honor and Humanity. Cool title, huh?
Here's BUNTA...
Your pal BUNTA here just saw a preview of Takashi Miike's latest film NEW GRAVEYARD OF HONOR AND HUMANITY (aka Shin Jingi no Hakaba) which is set to open in Japanese theaters on June 22. Wanted to give you, as well as the cult film crazies out there, the heads-up on what is, without a doubt, his greatest film to date.
Takashi Miike is known for two things, a.) being prolific and for b.) an incredibly diverse body of work. His BIRD PEOPLE OF CHINA is as different from AUDITION as that film is from DEAD OR ALIVE. Containing serious drama, epic body fluid gross outs, and gun crazy action, GRAVEYARD is the film that finally puts it all together. It is a new version of a 1976 classic yakuza movie that was directed by Mr. BATTLE ROYALE himself Kinji Fukasaku (known in the USA for THE GREEN SLIME and MESSAGE FROM SPACE, i.e. not his best works, but fun ones nevertheless). Both Miike and Fukasaku were interviewed and written about in a new book called TOKYOSCOPE: THE JAPANESE CULT FILM COMPANION. Both are complete gods of Japanese film. The original GRAVEYARD OF HONOR AND HUMANITY was the real-life story of an actual psychopathic post-war gangster named Rikio Ishikawa who rampaged mad-dog style for 30 odd years until he leaped out of a prison hospital and to his death. Why would anyone want to see such a depressing flick, let alone re-make it? Mostly because Ishikawa's story is so gosh-darn unique and extreme. You see, even though the yakuza are criminals, the crime is organized. They still function in a classic group dynamic not too different from how Japanese corporations operate. But the lone wolf Ishikawa was an outlaw even among the outlaws. With a mix of social commentary and super violence, Fukasaku's film (which played in the US several times on the festival circuit and is now rumored to be coming out soon in DVD in the UK from Tartan) shocked audiences in Japan in the seventies as much as CLOCKWORK ORANGE and TAXI DRIVER terrorized the West and soon took it's place among the classic Japanese gangster movies.
Ok, so enough history Š Miike's re-thinking of GRAVEYARD is set in Japan from the eighties through the nineties, a time when the economy went up and down, when political scandal became commonplace, and when events like the Kobe earthquake and the poison gas attack by the AUM doomsday cult traumatized the nation. The troubled spirit of these times is manifest in Rikio Ishimasu (note the name change), a bartender who - after saving a yakuza boss from an assassination attempt by one Takashi Miike (which makes for a cool, if jarring cameo) - quickly rises through the ranks in the underworld Š maybe too fast. You see, Ishimasu is from the get-go a psychopath and a rapist pure and simple. He slits the throat of a rival boss and commits a random act of sexual assault all within a single day before being sent to prison for five years. When Ishimasu gets out of the pen, he has a new bunch of loyal yakuza pals, as well as a common-law-wife in the woman he once raped (warning - this is NOT a date movie!). During a misunderstanding, Ishimasu accidentally shoots his own boss and ignites a gang war between two loosely connected yakuza factions. Ishimasu is now well in over his head. Just the time to get addicted to hard drugs, don't you think? Things go from bad to hellish as Ishimasu grows increasingly paranoid and smack-addled. He introduces the spike to his girlfriend and gets arrested again after an insane apartment building shootout only to escape from jail after drinking horrifically spoiled milk, an act which messes up his stomach something fierce. Arriving at his loyal friend's house in a torrent of vomit and diarrhea (viewers of Miike's VISITOR Q 'ain't seen nothing yet) he's nursed back to physical health again, but not mental health. Not even. Believing as only a paranoid junkie can that he's been betrayed, Ishimasu turns on everyone except his addict girlfriend. As the bodies start piling up, his very last friend must decide which side of the bullet he'd rather be on. But Ishimasu isn't going to shuffle off this mortal coil until he's damn ready to and on his own terms . . .
At 133 minutes, this is a long and intense ride through the dark side. Miike's knack for pacing and black humor keeps things moving, but also really holding this thing together is Goro Kishitani who plays Ishimasu. He makes this over-the-top character totally believable. And while it is hard to be entirely sympathetic, he still comes off as a better, more pure, being than the hypocritical gangsters that surround him. The yakuza world is based on the warrior-like code of Jingi, which means Honor and Humanity. In some ways Ishimasu's excess serves as a test to everyone - his gangster friends, the audience, and film critics. In breaking the codes of conduct from day one, Ishimasu forces everyone to ask what side of the line they stand on, and how moral, or immoral, the view is from the other side. The result is an incredible film, both emotionally powerful and bone dry. Miike himself is said to be taking a break after this one, saying that he needs to refuel his batteries so he can tackle ZATOICHI next.
After witnessing the terror and truth of NEW GRAVEYARD OF HONOR AND HUMANITY, you'll probably need a shot of Suntory Whiskey and a good lie-down as well.
BUNTA out for now...
