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TRASH:
TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT
Dead Or Alive: Final
IMDB
| Official
Site (in Korean)
dir.
Takashi Miike
starring: Aikawa
Sho, Takeuchi Riki, Terence Yin, Josie Ho, Tony Ho,
Richard Cheung, Kenneth Low
Japanese
indie bad boy Takashi Miike ends his low budget scifi
action trilogy with a film that resembles "Terminator
2" if it had been made in Hong Kong on video by
Roger Corman and a pack of bored 3D artists.
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Look
very closely at the dark, menacing figure behind the
two protagonists. Ewwww.
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Strike
that. Roger Corman couldn't get as weird as Takashi
Miike. In his relatively short career Miike has pumped
out an incredible 52 films including cult favourites
"Audition", "Ichi the Killer" and
"The Happiness of the Kautakiris". Each represents
a different and delicious slice of weird. "Ichi"
is a funny gorefest about an assassin who slices Yakuza
to pieces with a blade in his boot and then cries like
a baby. "Happiness" is a musical about a family-run
resort where the guests usually end up dead. Each film
has hit or miss elements but all have an enjoyable unpredictability.
One gets the sense watching a Miike film that almost
anything can happen.
In
"Dead or Alive: Final" we are returned to
Yokohama 2346, a desolate city that looks exactly like
present-day Hong Kong. People speak Cantonese, Japanese
and English and everyone seems to understand them. Shot
very cheaply, at what looks like 1/100th of the budget
of the original "Terminator", "Dead
or Alive: Final" nevertheless does its bit to include
stock elements from near future standards. The movie
opens with a smirking piss-take of the ad dirigible
from "Blade Runner", rather shabbily rendered.
From this early effect on the cheap we understand the
take it or leave it attitude the audience needs to have
to get anything out of watching "Dead or Alive:Final".
Not
having seen the first two doesn't seem to be a detraction
from understanding this film, considering the extent
to which "Dead or Alive: Final" plunders the
well-worn near future path albeit with a wacked out
central premise. In the future, the world has been so
traumatized by war that the mayor of Yokohama has made
it a crime for people to breed. Children and pregnant
women are hunted down like they are dangerous extraterrestrials.
Walking
into this situation is a rain slick-wearing kick-ass
android named Ryo. The prototypical man of few words,
Ryo saves a young boy from the grips of a police SWAT
team and befriends him, setting up a "Terminator
2" like relationship. The initial action sequence
involving Ryo and the leader of the police squad, Honda,
is an over-the-top blend of ridiculous stunts and trashy
effects that creates smiles as often as eye rolling
in the audience. If you can stand the first ten minutes,
then you'll probably stay for the last eighty.
After
rescuing the boy from the anti-child police Ryo is taken
back to the boy's surrogate family, a group of rebels
already fighting among themselves to decide how to take
on the mayor. The criminal element of the gang decides
to shake down Ryo but discover, after having their ass
kicked, that he's some kind of battle robot with super
reflexes and a deadpan sense of humour. You know eventually
that it will come down to Ryo vs. the anti-child authorities.
A
future Yokohama that looks just like present day Hong
Kong
Meanwhile,
the Mayor's detective, Honda, is having doubts about his
employer's anti-child policy. The mayor, a simpering homo-villain
who is never far from his saxaphone-playing catamite,
explains that he wants the population to age gracefully,
though to an unstated end. Yet, Honda himself seems to
have a picture-perfect family with a beautiful wife and
a young son who seems not to violate the anti-child law.
Hmmm, you might be wondering.
It's
no surprise that the plot is not exactly the strong
element in "Dead or Alive: Final", and to
be honest there are more than few instances where you
might be looking at your watch waiting for the next
explosion of pulp action. "Dead or Alive"'s
editing seems designed to drag out as many of the painfully
acted scenes as possible. Miike's shooting schedule
also seems not to have allowed much time for lighting
and a minimum of set dressing.
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Buoffant's
a plenty in the future world
To
belabor that point is to concentrate on the obviously
throwaway elements in the movie, elements that really
are not important especially when measured against the
jaw-dropping, stupendously weird ending. While a bit
too much time passes before the inevitable final confrontation
between Ryo and his equally adept opponent, Honda, the
final fight and deliriously funny transformation involving
a flying robot with a phallus for a head makes it all
worth it. It's a rousing finish to a trash spectacular.
At
the Vancouver
International Film Festival.
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The
RUSSIAN ARK - An awesome spectacle. Not just
a tremendous technical feat (89 minute steadicam shot),
but actually a meaningful, powerful way of showing history.
It's all about continuity since the camera never stops.
From room to room the history of Russia spills out, is interrogated
by the narrator (the director Sokurov) and the primary character:
a European aristocrat who criticizes Russian culture to
begin with but then seems to be won over. The amazing final
sequence where the camera is sucked into a grand ball of
officers, gentry, ladies and a full orchestra is a wondrous
achievement of cinematography. A dream of a film. 
an
evil gang. A totally enjoyable martial arts comedy-action
film in the same vein of humour as Sergio Leone's Man With
No Name westerns. Lots of posturing, one-liners and comic
action. The martial arts isn't to today's standards but
it is pretty fluid and inventive. If this shows up in your
city drag all your friends to see it. It's very fun. 
