In this first flick of the famed Dead or Alive trilogy, Takashi Miike takes a slightly different approach to the poetic Takeshi Kitano, in his subversion of the yakuza genre. Bringing along his V-Cinema (essentially B-movie) roots, Miike decides to overload the film and push it to such ridiculous limits that it oscillates between shocking, gruesome scenes and moments so exuberant that the film simply becomes a parody of itself.
But while Miike’s Audition, which gained him international fame in the same year, was a full-forced sucker-punch to the romantic drama, Dead or Alive only reaches similarly inspired moments in its opening montage and the fantastic, apocalyptic climax. The rest of the fillm is a let down, descending into standard cops and yakuza fare with unremarkable characters filling up time from the energetic bookend scenes.
The middle act tells the story of Ryuichi and his small yakuza group, who attempts to take over the Shinjuku underworld against the other Japanese and Chinese mafia groups, while Detective Jojima works to eliminate them all and stop the crime. There is little that is memorable about this mid-section, apart from the general match-up of Riki Takeuchi and Sho Aikawa, which feels like the Japanese equivalent to an Al Pacino and Robert De Niro showdown.
The film simply sets up high expectations with its hyperkinetic, rock-infused Godfather-esque opening montage (with a stripper instead of a baptism, of course), as Ryuichi and other gangsters travel about the city and murder yakuza bosses in violent, creative and absurd ways. This opening clearly shows Miike knows the genre and tradition he is working in, and he wants to push it forward and simply get to the juicy parts. While the ending seems to come with a similarly beneficial (and sensational) self-awareness, the parts in between are a regression and feel like a bored cop-out to fill the gap.
Viewers may get everything they want out of the film by watching several online clips instead of the entire film. Unless you are a Takashi Miike fan, it may be better to watch Ichi the Killer or The City of Lost Souls—two crime films that are far more consistent in their entertainment.
Reviewed by Tarun
