I think that Miike could quite possibly be the absolute most overated director in Asian cinema to date. To be perfectly honest, I don't see his appeal. He's a one trick pony, for the most part. He's got a yakuza fetish that could rival Tarantino's penchant for patchworked movies and mindless blood shed.
Now, to date, I've seen:
"Dead or Alive" - Mindless Yakuza..
"City of Lost Souls" - More of the same..
"Audition" - Pretentious "Basic Instinct" rip..
"Ichi the Killer" - HORRIBLY overhyped..
"Gozu" - Tried too hard to be occult/odd, and forgot to entertain
It's safe to say I've given him more than a fair chance to impress me, so what is it that YOU people see in his work, that makes him the Q.T. of the Far East?
Last edited by Cory Chaos on Jan 26th, 2005 at 04:48 PM
I only seen ichi the killer and audition..I liked them both actually....probably the over top twisted factor made me like them..I really don't they were complete rip offs because I haven't seen any thing that made me cringe as much as those 2 movies ,well except maybe the passion
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I seen most of his movies and I'm quite impress with his work. His most impressive work was Ichi. Ichi the Killer is based on the manga Koroshiya (which btw- is not available in America) and Takashii kept the characters behavior nearly exactly to the manga. I mean Hollywood tries so hard to stay true to their Comic Book movies and they failed miserably! Any comic book adaptation has been terrible (with the exception of Tim Burton's Batman) For me Takashii capture the style and gore of the manga and made a great adaptation. Too bad our American directors suck at making comic book movies (Blade, Spider Man, The Hulk, WTF???). Yup, is a pitty we look down at foreign talent and yet our own film industry is complete trash.
i've seen audition and dead or alive, i liked both... audition being a particular favourite of mine... and i think its pretty insulting to call it a basic instinct rip off, miike did a fine job with audition imo...
dead or alive... i like mindless violence sometimes... whats wrong with that?
Ichi the Killer is overrated, but it's still worth a look, compared to his other works like Audition(which I agree with the calling it a BI rip off is stupid, nothing like it), Vistor Q and Fudoh are fine films from Miike.
Staying true to characters, I guess, is commendable. I think "Ichi" and it's gore-found reputation is fan-made. There's hardly any to speak of, and everyone mistakes Ichi for the detective, who was the most interesting character in the film. Given most people that see these probably aren't familiar with any manga, muchless their origins, I don't know that they'd share the same opinions.
I don't care, honestly. Movies are made to be critiqued, people have opinions, and that's just the way I work. Like I said, just a lot of pretention in that movie, IMO. As for the "Basic Instinct" quip, was it sheer coincidence that Asami was wearing a white suit, sleeveless IIRD, sitting in an isolated chair in the middle of the room with her legs crossed? The two shared some character traits as well, and it may have been nothing more than a little homage to a similarly themed movie, but you can't deny the comparison can be drawn.
Bottom line is, "Audition" was a nice idea that didn't quite unnerve me as everyone claimed it would. Just some gross out scenes, which would have been more effective had they been executed and not implied. In addition, I felt as if we were made to feel too much for the dirty old man, Shigeharu.
80 minutes of dialogue and teasing for 10 minutes of contrived torture? No, thanks. But hey, atleast this Asian "horror" has one thing going for it. It's not a ghost story.
Last edited by Cory Chaos on Jan 26th, 2005 at 05:08 PM
Where does QT come into it, other than the fact Miike is one of the directors who QT "Borrows" his "Original" ideas from. I like QT, but Miike is an established and powerful director in his own right the guy has made a massive amount of films ... if you have only seen 4 or 5 then you really can’t judge, based on that.
Just look at something like *The Bird People In China and you will see he is far from a one trick pony.
I would have posted a link but this forum won't let me ...
I've only seen Brother and the packaging said "Japan's answer to Quentin Tarantino" and while the movie had lots of elements I enjoyed (the whole ascension from the hood to respected gang was awesome) the end didn't quite cut it for me. I've heard a lot about Ichi the Killer though.
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"You can get further with a kind word and a gun, than just a kind word" - Al Capone
I just watched Visitor Q and must Takashi Miike is one director that takes big chances..yeah it's all for shock value but I never seen half this stuff in American cinema...it was pretty outrageous!
I've seen Ichi and Audition, I didn't care much for Ichi, I ended up falling asleep about half way through.
Audition on the other hand, I thought to be a great movie. I, unlike C-dic, found it to be very unnerving and disturbing, implied gore and horrible acts are almost always more effective then explicitely showing them, it worked well for audition.
The film was sureal but real at the same time, it's atmosphere was unlike any I've seen before, feeling like it was teetering between a dream and real life.
Of course, if you go into this movie expecting constant shock scenes, then you're going to be disapointed, it isn't about gore, shock, unnerving scenes, it's about the power of love and how harmfull being desperate can be.
Of course, Audition, and Ichi for that matter, aren't for everyone.
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Last edited by BackFire on May 11th, 2005 at 07:32 PM
Well I have to disagree with the OP. I am not usually a fan of gore for gore's sake but I adore Miike. I think he is an incredibly bold filmmaker and I love the dark humour in his films and their bizarre characters.
Visitor Q to me is much more shocking than Ichi. It's not for the easily offended however.
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Jan 26th, 2005 07:19 AM
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