takashi miike

who?

orson welles

nice to see Bird People getting a lot of love up there. That and Visitor Q are really the only movies of his I re-watch.

I have a few of his movies on my netflix queue that I keep pushing back because I've never heard any positive word of mouth from any of my Asian film buff friends. Anyone have thoughts on any of these?

Bang Bang Love: Juvenile A
Neighbor 13: Special Edition
Sabu

Sukiyaki Western Django is a lot of fun, though as you'd expect the Tarantino bits are pretty cringeworthy.

SWD is great even with (or perhaps helped by) laughable Tarantino part. Parts of this reminded me of the awesome Tears of the Black Tiger.

Audition: FUCKIN HELL.

What else is good?

I love The Happiness of the Katakuris, but it's a very different movie.

Katakuris was fun but The Quiet Family is a much better film

i dug great yokai war

had IZO sitting at home for about a month now--worth watching?

Izo's a chore. Yokai War was fun, but I'm getting the impression that the late 90s/early 00s were a creative peak for Miike. His recent work seems to lack the intensity and wildness of the films that really made his rep in the West. Haven't seen everything he's done lately by any means, but Gozu was the last Miike flick to really grab me, and as great as it is, it's still a bit restrained and coherently organized for my tastes. Its excesses feel intentional rather than exploratory. Still a fantastic movie, funny and creepy as hell. Even romantic.

Visitor Q rules.

seventh the rec of bird people in china, it's amazing. first time i watched i was hi and when the girl started singing i was like holy shit.

Just saw Zebraman - can't recommend to it to most people, but man it was indeed sappy and I loved it. A much dryer take on the first Spider-Man and Men in Black movies, and better! Can't wait to be able to get a hold of Yatterman if it's anything like this.

Thank goodness for this thread, there's so much stuff of his it's hard to sort through - as a result I generally see one Miike film more or less by accident every year or so. Loved Audition, tried Ichi the Killer but like a poster early in the thread I had to turn it off in less than 20 minutes, guess I'm just too squeamish. Loved Katakuris, Bird People in China was okay. Guess I'll try Dead or Alive next.

Watching MPD Psycho again at the mo, easier to keep up with a second time.

finally got around to visitor Q and it is def my favorite miike. still think audition is boring and ichii doesnt do it for me, but this and happiness of the katakuris are just so much fun (an odd word for the experience, but accurate i think)

wow, totally opposite reaction to those 4 movies

have you seen imprint?

was that the masters of horror one about the brothel demon or whatever?

if so, yeah, ive seen it, and it was a gleaming treasure compared to the rest of masters of horror, but that kind of like being the shiniest piece of corn in the toilet bowl tbh.

just watched visitor q, actually. whoa.

can't really say I enjoyed it but more power to ya.

jjjusten have you seen gozu

kinda with you, jjjustin, on the value of the miikes. love happiness & visitor q, not so fond of ichii. do like audition, though. slow but really well done. dead or alive, gozu & zebraman are good, too. really should fill in some gaps, as it's been a long time since i watched a miike flick.

Love Audition and Imprint. Seems like he hasn't done anything *amazing* in a while, though, huh?

I like gozu a bunch. been on a mini miike kick and I re-watched it the other day. definitely overlong but lots of memorable scenes... esp that ending! @__@

audition, gozu, and doa 2 are my faves from what I've seen. ichii didn't do much for me and imprint was too rough for me to handle.

i started gozu but was distracted at the time so i stopped, def intend to go back to it soon.

watched audition for the first time now. first 2/3 are neat, last 1/3 is gratuitous, huh?

gratuitously awesome

dialogue during torture scene is great, love asami's philosophy lessons

the last third is so effective because of the stark difference!

^^

He's coming to NYC for his Lincoln Center retro.

http://subwaycinemanews.com/archives/1581

Yokai war is either batshit awesome or batshit awful and honestly I kinda flip back and forth every time I see it

13 Assassins was really something.

In a good way?

Definitely. Strictly for the ultraviolence crowd though.

Brilliant, I'm there.

One of the better remakes I've seen. tremendous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSJxRbrvmUM

13 Assassins was pretty great. Not ground-breaking in any way, but just a lot of fun, pretty self-aware of samurai movie tropes, with a dash of really out-of-place Miike ultraviolence extremities. I love how the final battle more or less drops the pretense of realism that the movie had been following for the most part. A wonderful slow burn build up to that phenomenal set piece.

It was really strange how in parts it was remarkably restrained in its graphic violence (i.e. the opening harakiri, though just the sound effects might have been even worse!), the surprising lack of arterial blood spray - I'm guessing in reverence to its sources, and yet other times it was totally over-the-top (that woman early in the film).

dying to see this on a big screen

i think i enjoyed the build up more than the battle itself. especially the part with 'that woman'

13 asses was kewl - has pretty much everything you'd want from a bloody samurai flick. i didnt think the build up was that great - lots of scenes of stern men going 'nng!' and 'hmm!' while talking about duty and honor - but at the same time it was just right for the payoff you get (the battle). the japanese version is longer but it's mostly just draggy exposition from what i understand and not miike craziness - stick with the intl vers

I like some of some of them.

the japanese version is longer but it's mostly just draggy exposition from what i understand and not miike craziness - stick with the intl vers

Interesting...obviously it's a great action film but few of the characters were developed satisfactorily (about half of the assassins were 100% interchangeable/disposable), which detracted from its emotional impact for me.

Thought the opening shot was extremely effective (those sound effects!!!).

yeah, i honestly could only remember Shinzaemon's name and the rest were just 'types' - probably the biggest thing holding the movie back from being really great.

one weird thing i noticed was that upashi was played by the same actress who played the wife of the nephew samurai... and only he and the mysterious immortal hunter survived hmmmm

I was going to mention that but thought it might count as a spoiler...assuming it's intentional I can't think of any explanation that isn't totally wtf and nonsensical in the context of the rest of the film.

yeah, i didn't understand what was going on there

I am stupidly excited about the Phoenix Wright movie he's supposedly working on.

i saw "gozu" recently. amazing demented film. id forgotten about this guy in the last few years but film 4 have shown a couple of his movies this week. i have "13 assasins" dvr'd as well so im looking forward to seeing that.