Takashi Miike is most at home in the world of V-Cinema. For those of you playing along at home, in terms of Japanese films, V-cinema means direct to video. Miike's success in major festivals took him away from what was essentially his bread and butter. Let's face it, Takashi Miike can make bad films good unlike any other filmmaker past or present, and Yakuza Apocalypse finds Miike attempting to return to his roots.
Opinion is mixed about the results. It also reflects the mad mind of its creator. In the words of Miike, "Yakuza Apocalypse is a drama," in true Miike fashion, like Fudoh: The New Generation, Full Metal Yakuza and Dead or Alive 2. For good measure, the director grafts on a dose of horror-comedy.
The problem is its writer Yoshitaka Yamaguchi (who claims to have scribbled the initial script idea on a napkin) populated the movie with cliché yakuza characters who are one dimensional and keeps throwing more and more at the viewer.
To describe the plot, one would have to abandon the realm of good taste and coherency, and even then you wouldn't come close to grasping the true demented madness that director Takashi Miike has unleashed on an unsuspecting public. That is, of course, not to say we haven't been warned in the past. Still, nothing can truly prepare you for what you are in store for here. The best description I've read so far follows --
To quote Jessica Kiang on The Playlist.com review:
"Taking place in that part of your imagination that ruled your storytelling capacity before narrative logic, realism, and cause/effect psychology came along, the film is an insane headrush of the most disposable, nonsensical, whacked-out genre bliss you're likely to have."
