Dead or Alive (Takashi Miike, 1999)

Being a pretty big Miike fan, and having heard about how outrageous and violent this movie is, I was expecting a lot. Dead or Alive doesn't necessarily disappoint, but it doesn't really deliver, either. It is the story of a cop, Jojima, with a very sick daughter, who is incredibly involved in his job, much to the chagrin of both his superiors on the take and the criminals on the street. Ryu is a yazuka boss (I think) with a brother who's studied in the United States, and wants no part in his brother's business. When Jojima and Ryu's paths cross, as they inevitably do, it means a lot of fighting and explosions. And one really cool gunfight in a club where probably fifty people die. Dead or Alive is an entertaining cop film that gives a little insight into the relationship between the Japanese and the Chinese in Japan. Apparently there's a lot of tension between the two groups, a tension that fuels a lot of the violence in the film. Again, there's a lot of cool, stylized violence, but there's not too much more to it than that. The ending, though, is what divides people so strongly about this film, and is probably the single most ridiculous thing I've seen in a movie in a long, long time. It's worth seeing, if just for the last thirty seconds. Really. I hope that the next two films in the series are just as entertaining as this one. 6/10 RIYL: Quentin Tarantino

Stumble It!