Matt Cooper Films

Bodyguard Kiba (1993) by Takashi Miike

After ripping off his fellow gang members, an ex-boxer hires a top bodyguard to help fend off his vengeful former associates. Junpei (Daisuke Nagekura) is driving the Soryu Family members, led by Yasunaga, to a meeting with a Chinese gangster. While stuck in traffic, the gangsters get out and walk leaving Junpei the opportunity to flee with 500 million yen. When he is later confronted, he stabs Yasunaga, leading to a five-year term in a North Kanto jail for attempted murder. On his release he hires the legendary bodyguard Naoto Kiba (Takeshi Yamato) to escort him back to Okinawa, where he intends to reunite with his girlfriend Yoko (Shinobu Tanaka) and avoid a confrontation with the members of the Soryu gang he betrayed.

Based on the comic by Ikki Kajiwara and Ken Nakagusuku, with a screenplay by Hisao Maki and Tetsuya Sasaki, and directed by Takashi Miike, “Bodyguard Kiba” is a fun action film with a straightforward plot, featuring karate, sex, double-crosses, and gang violence. The simplicity of the story means that it doesn’t get in the way of the action. Junpei is an entertaining protagonist and sympathetic in contrast to the aggressive mobster Yasunaga. Kiba is established as an almost unstoppable force, capable of taking out a room full of villains in well-choreographed fight sequences that retain a sense of impact. The film features an unecessary but entertaining scene at the end when Kiba takes on a police officer who also happens to be a karate enthusiast.

Despite being, for the most part, rather silly knockabout fun, the film manages to create tension and delivers an emotional punch in the central relationship between Junpei and Yoko. Centering themes of trust, loyalty, and betrayal, the script builds to a thrilling showdown in which their relationship is tested to the limit. For fans of fast-paced crime thrilers, “Bodyguard Kiba” certainly delivers.

Matt Cooper Films

Family 1&2 (2001) by Takashi Miike

After a traumatic childhood, the three Miwa brothers, Hideshi (Koichi Iwaki), Takashi (Kazuya Kimura), and the youngest Takeshi (Taishu Kase), become involved in a life of crime, the elder siblings working as underbosses for a major crime family, while Takeshi becomes a professional assassin. When Takeshi kills the leader of a rival gang it sparks a conflict that threatens to spiral into an all-out war.

“Family 1&2” features many of the usual tropes of Yakuza drama, but with very little impact. The film begins with a rape scene in which Haruko Miwa, the mother of the three protagonists, is assaulted after her husband is unable to pay his debts. As shocking as this scene and others like it are, they function as plot mechanics rather than having any real impact on the characters, and by extension the audience. The film continually swerves any moments of real drama, such as Hideshi’s wife confronting him about the danger they are in, or the brothers’ relationship with their mother; instead layering scenes that fail to develop the characters, but serve to showcase stereotypical gang violence. It feels like a series of subplots jumbled together without any central story or message. Usually, a Yakuza gang war would be the backdrop to a human drama, while here it is the whole point. There is a tonal inconsistency that makes it hard to take anything seriously and undermines what should be devastating moments. The sequence in which Takashi’s wife is being raped, while Takashi and his brother arrive in a tank to take on the gang is one example of this mismatch in tones, trivialising a horrifying experience. The film is based on a manga by Hisao Maki, which may account for some of the more bizarre elements and outrageous characterisation (Takeshi is a preternaturally gifted gunman), but it is a poor excuse for the lacklustre storytelling. Part daytime television drama, part hardcore Yakuza film. Miike’s direction shows signs of his usual creativity, until the strain of attempting to elevate the material becomes too much. Sadly, the film’s flashes of brilliance are outweighed by its meandering, emotionally-detached plot, and low-budget elements.

Matt Cooper Films

Gozu (2003) by Takashi Miike

After being tasked with taking his senior to be executed, a young Yakuza (Hideki Sone) encounters a series of bizarre and troubling incidents in this unconventional crime tale. “Gozu” begins with the Yakuza Ozaki (Show Aikawa) telling his boss that everything that he’s about to say is a joke, and not to take it too seriously. This could be a nod to the audience that we are in for a wild ride, even by the standards of director Takashi Miike’s extensive catalogue of weird and wonderful films. Not long after Ozaki says this he spots a small dog outside; convinced it is a ‘Yakuza dog’, specially trained to kill gangsters, he heads outside to dash the dog against the ground, swinging it around his head on its lead before flinging it into the window. This sets the tone for the film’s blend of dark comedy, graphic violence, and seemingly non-sequitur storytelling. After Ozaki dies unexpectedly in an accident, his junior, Minami (Sone), stops by a cafe; but when he returns to the car, Ozaki is gone. Things get stranger when Minami checks in at a nearby ryokan, with a lactating landlady, a cow-headed figure in Y-fronts, rituals to summon spirits, odd patrons of the local cafe, and the mystery of how a dead man got up and walked away.

Written by Sakichi Sato and directed by Takashi Miike, “Gozu” provides an entertaining story from beginning to end, with provocative imagery veering from sinister to hilarious. The film constantly undercuts the tension wtih moments of farce, or drives things to the extreme in a way that leaves you searching for some symbolism. Hideki Sone does a great job as the confused Minami, his anxiety about what he has to do and his loyalty to his senior writ large in his performance. Likewise, the unhinged thug Ozaki is played brilliantly by Show Aikawa. The cast of peculiar characters they meet along the road, including Shohei Hino’s Nose, a man with a peculiar skin condition, and Keiko Tomita and Harumi Sone, the odd couple who run the local inn, all help to bring the film’s mysterious journey to life. Koji Endo’s score of grinding strings furthers the unsettling atmosphere, emphasising Minami’s descent into a world both inexplicable and inescapable.

“Gozu” is a film that lends itself to interpretation, but it is hard to pin down just one. At its heart it centres on the anxiety of Minami, perhaps grappling with his conscience knowing that is driving his senior to his death. Ozaki is knocked out when Minami brakes hard as the road comes to an abrupt end at a river. This could be the first of several references to the afterlife, although they do not cross the river. Whether Ozaki is in hell, purgatory, or some nighmare world, the mystery deepens as he falls for a woman claiming to be Ozaki, played by Kimika Yoshino. Again, it is possible to see this as Ozaki’s spirit, now in its pure form, and the final moments of the film again twist ideas of identity and self to a grotesque yet compelling conclusion. The film seems to poke fun at the Yakuza as an institution, particularly in the character of their boss (Renji Ishibashi), who has a peculiar ritual required before love-making. Whether a parody of the typical crime film; a dark dive into the psyche of gangsters; or a film about closeted homosexuality, “Gozu” is a film that provides plenty of food for thought.

Matt Cooper Films

Lumberjack the Monster (2023) by Takashi Miike

After being attacked by an axe-wielding, mask-wearing assailant, lawyer Akira Ninomiya (Kazuya Kamenashi) sets out to discover who is behind the attack. Meanwhile, detectives Inui (Kiyohiko Shibukawa) and Toshiro (Nanao) are on the trail of the same man who is responsible for a series of slayings in which he took the victims’ brains. The mystery deepens when they discover that all of the victims had a neurochip implant.

Based on a novel by Mayusuke Kurai, with a screenplay by Hiroyoshi Koiwai, “Lumberjack the Monster” is a gory crime thriller with elements of gothic horror directed by Takashi Miike. The prologue set in a large, dimly-lit mansion, with kidnappers experimenting on children and barrels containing the dismembered pre-adolecent corpses of former failed experiments, sets up the dark tone of what is to follow. The film slips between glossy, brightly lit environments and the gloomy underbelly of this society, perfectly visualising the themes of duality in human nature. Kazuya Kamenashi gives a good performance as Ninomiya, a villainous protagonist who displays psychopathic tendencies, working well alongside Shota Sometani’s Sugitani, a doctor who is even more psychologically perverse than Ninomiya, having no qualms about performing fatal experiments on animals and humans alike. Similarly Kiyohiko Shibukawa and Nanao as Inui and Toshiro have good chemistry together as an old-school detective, recently demoted due to attacking a suspect, and a modern behavioural science graduate whose insights and deductive capacity prove invaluable yet frustrating to her partner. The plot may be slightly far-fetched, and later on the holes start to grow wider, but the film manages to hold things together until a final act that provides enough emotional weight to sink any flaws in the logic.

“Lumberjack the Monster” is an intriguing film, part crime thriller, part modern retelling of a traditional folktale. Throughout we hear narration of a children’s book of the same title, telling the story of a monster disguised as a lumberjack. The plot of the book often mirrors the actions of the killer in the film, as well as Ninomiya, and provides an explanation of the themes of the film. One flaw of the film is that it confuses the definition of psychopath as a person who seems to delight in killing and has an insatiable appetite for murder. That being said, the film posits several interesting ideas, regarding personality augmentation, the extent to which people bear responsibility for their actions, and the possibility of forgiveness for even the most horrific crimes. While masked in a near-future, science-fiction, quasi-gothic folklore, the film nevertheless is strikingly relevant to the fields of criminology and forensic psychology. Well worth a watch for fans of slightly outrageous gory crime films.

Matt Cooper Films

Andromedia (1998) by Takashi Miike

A recently deceased teen is brought back as an Artificial Intelligence in this cheesy science-fiction action film. “Andromedia” begins like a typical high-school romantic drama, with young couple Mai (Hiroko Shimabukuro) and Yuu (Kenji Harada) dating and hanging out with their friends. On her way back from one of their dates, Mai is hit by a truck and killed. Her father, a computer programmer, has developed a system allowing him to use Mai’s memories to reconstruct and artifical computer model of her, which is named Ai (or A.I.). This incredible breakthrough in Artificial Intelligence is sought after by Mai’s half-brother Satoshi (Ryo Karato) and a shadowy American businessman (Christopher Doyle), who sends hitmen out to retreive the programme. Mai reaches out to Yuu and her friends to help her evade their attempts to seize her.

“Andromedia” stars members of girl-group ‘Speed’ and boy band ‘DaPump’, essentially a vehicle for these teenage pop-stars to flex their acting skills. The story is filled with plot-holes and illogical moments, slapstick comedy and melodramatic teen romance. The strongest element of the plot is the love story between Yuu and Mai as they try to navigate what their relationship is now one is no longer physically present. Both Hiroko Shimabukuro and Kenji Harada do a good job with these characters. Being band-members the cast have a good chemistry together as the group of friends, their relationships being the most believable part of the eccentric story around them. The story of a dangerous organization attempting to steal a powerful computer programme is somewhat generic, again based on the most tenuous premise, and often seems to be from a completley different film to the teen hijinks that comprise the rest of the action. The most striking example of this film being more of a platform for the cast rather than an attempt at serious drama comes part-way through when, after having survived an outrageous car chase, we are treated to a song and dance number that appears unrelated to anything before or after. If you can handle the cheap special effects, illogical science-fiction plot, and overly sentimental romance, “Andromedia” keeps up a strong pace, rarely pausing for you to consider exactly why anything is happening. The juxtaposition of teen drama with assassinations, car chases, and some fun cyberpunk elements later on, make for an entertaining if unserious film.

Buried under the trite romance and science-fiction tropes, the film touches on a number of interesting ideas. Mai’s rebirth as an Artificial Intelligence lends itself to exploration of the distinctions and limitations between machine intelligences and humans. In some of the most powerful moments we see Ai’s desire to smell the sea or touch Yuu, something that a computer will never be able to experience. In one brief but impactful scene we see Satoshi becoming one with a machine he has built, suspended Christ-like amongst the wires. Themes of transhumanism, the religious significance of our increasing reliance on machines, and potential progress towards further integration with them, suggest unexplored depths beneath the film’s surface narrative. Overall, the film feels like a strong science-fiction concept hindered by having to accommodate the stars of these two pop-groups, meaning a watering down of the harder elements and an inability to truly develop some of its more interesting ideas.