"Ichi the Killer" (2001)

(Originally released as Koroshiya 1)

Starring: Tadanobu Asano, Nao Omori, Shinya Tsukamoto, Alien Sun, Sabu, Shun Sagata

First, the lowdown: A sadistic Yakuza tracks down his boss’s socially awkward assassin.

Whoah. I’m gonna start out by saying that this movie is not for the faint of heart. After being exposed to blood-soaked Italian giallo flicks and over-the-top Chinese viscera, I’ve become more than a little numbed to gore in movies. Ichi made me squirm during more than a few places. I’m impressed.

There are layers to the messed-uppedness in this film; it’s like peeling an artichoke only to find a live grenade in the center that explodes in your face. That being said, it’s hard to come up with a synopsis to this movie, but I’m going to try anyway.

We open with a trio of gang outcasts: Jijii, Saburo, and Ryu. They patiently wait in a van for their assassin, Ichi, to finish with his job: the execution of gang leader Anjo. Ichi confirms that his mission is over by giving Jijii a tearful phone call on his cellphone, and the three of them go up to the apartment to clean up. The apartment needs cleaning up because Ichi’s methods, while effective, leave quite the mess. (One of the men slips on a pile of entrails.)

The next day, Anjo’s gang tries to evaluate what’s happened. Jijii’s group cleaned the apartment so thoroughly that it doesn’t look like anyone died. The prevailing opinion given by Anjo’s superiors in the syndicate is that Anjo took the 300 million yen (about $25,000) and ran off. Karen, Anjo’s mistress (whose conversation flows between Japanese, Chinese, and English), mirrors this opinion. Kakihara, Anjo’s second in command, doesn’t think so and suspects that someone has either kidnapped or killed Anjo.

Jijii approaches the Anjo gang with a tip about the whereabouts of their boss. Jijii says that Suzuki, who works for a rival gang under the same syndicate, has been badmouthing Kakihara and holds a grudge against him for undermining a pornographic video operation. Kakihara has Suzuki kidnapped and tortured (including dumping hot tempura oil on him), only to be interrupted by Suzuki’s boss, Funaki. It turns out that Suzuki really DIDN’T know anything, and as a result the Anjo gang is thrown out of the syndicate. Now thoroughly pissed, Kakihara is determined to find out where both Jijii and the man who killed his boss is.

Takashi Miike has long established himself as a shock-film auteur. The interesting thing about how he uses gore is that it’s hard to label it as exploitive. There’s a lot of mutilation in this film, but the characters all take it in stride. There are very few reactions of disgust, most of Kakihara’s cohorts look on with professional detachment as he pokes and prods into yet another victim.

Line of the movie: “There’s no love in your violence.”

Five stars. All employees must wash hands before returning to work.

"Phantom Of The Paradise" (1974)

Starring: Paul Williams, William Finley, Jessica Harper, George Memmoli, Gerrit Graham.

First, the lowdown: It’s what Webber’s Phantom of the Opera would’ve looked like if done immediately after Starlight Express.

Frank Zappa once posited that if the world is going to come to an end, it wouldn’t be by plague, pestilence, war or natural disaster, but by all of humanity being crushed under an ever-growing wave of nostalgia. This exercise in sequins and eyeliner was the brainchild of Brian De Palma. Yes, the same man who brought Scarface and Dressed to Kill to the screen created this. Paul Williams plays Swan, the head of Death Records, a cornerstone of the recording industry (you heard it right folks, the midget with a pageboy haircut plays a David Geffin/Brian Epstein hybrid while sporting the Herve Villechaize collection). Swan’s current figurehead for his label is the appropriately named band The Juicy Fruits who are spearheading the 1950s nostalgia movement (but in reality look like Sha-Na-Na). After the Juicy Fruits give a saccharine laden do-wop number at Swan’s club, bookish songwriter Winslow Leach (who looks a little TOO much like Randy Newman) gives a solo piano performance to a barely responsive crowd. (The scene is pretty painful in that it points out why many songwriters don’t sing.) Turns out that it’s a passage from a rock operetta to the story of Faust (how original!) that Winslow has created. Knowing a “next big thing” when he sees it, Swan sends out right-hand lackey Philbin to dupe Winslow out of it.

Winslow, too naïve to hire at least 1000 lbs of lawyer before getting into any kind of entertainment deal, willingly gives the score over. After a few months of getting his phone calls ignored and being forcibly ejected from Swan’s office and home (the “Swanage”; hey, at least it’s not “Schwannstein”), Winslow finally gets framed for drug trafficking and put in the big house. Months of prison rapes and experimental dental surgery take their toll and Winslow goes berserk and escapes the hoosegow. His first outlet for his anger is the press house for Death Records. A few minutes into going “Winslow SMASH!” on everything, the cops arrive, Winslow panics, and he gets his noggin caught in a record press. Ouch. Our deluded sap managed to elude capture however, and slink his way to The Paradise, a new theatre of Swan’s design where he dresses up as an Elton-John-meets-Marilyn-Manson caricature. The opening number to said theatre is going to be based off of Winslow’s music with The Juicy Fruits singing it.

Enraged beyond all comprehension, our newly christened Phantom plants a bomb on the stage, which only seems to succeed in scaring the bodily waste out of people. Swan, on the other hand, being the intelligent dwarf he is, catches up with our erstwhile Phantom and promises that he will willingly buy the music and use it as written, if he lays off the killing thing. The Phantom relents, gets a synthesized voice box, and finishes the score while subsiding on a diet consisting entirely of uppers. Meanwhile, Swan has been auditioning talent, but instead of putting the underspoken siren Phoenix (who Winslow has a hankerin’ for), he puts in a reject from T-Rex with Peter Frampton’s stage presence: Beef.

Fed up with everyone, the Phantom inadvertently provides a climax to the Paradise’s opening (during a number that’s supposed to come off as Alice Cooper with KISS trimmings, but in reality reminds one of the Rocky Horror Picture Show) by killing the appropriately named Beef with a light fixture, which puts Phoenix into the limelight. And the rest I leave up to you guys; I’m still compulsively washing myself after seeing Paul Williams get it on.

Line of the movie: “I loathe perfection, unless it is in myself.” Paul Williams - EWWW!

Three stars. Have a nice day.

"Dead Or Alive" (1999)

(Originally released as Dead Or Alive: Hanzaisha)

Starring: Riki Takeuchi, Sho Aikawa, Renji Ishibashi, Hitoshi Ozawa, Shingo Tsurumi, Kaoru Sugita

First, the lowdown: Yet another John Woo-inspired gangster drama. Except Japanese.

For those who aren’t fluent in Japanese culture, here’s a little bit of something you should know before watching this film: Chinese-born Japanese citizens aren’t terribly well-treated in the land of the Rising Sun. In fact one person I talked to likened the Japanese attitude toward Chinese immigrants to the American attitude toward Mexicans. (Of course much of it can also be attributed to the fact that China and Japan have been enemies for centuries as well as Japan’s xenophobic history.)

The Shinjuku underworld: a wretched hive of scum and villainy in the heart of downtown Tokyo. While repetitive industrial music plays, strippers and escorts go about their business, and three Chinese-connected gangsters are executed (one of them while he’s sodomizing a street hustler in the john). The police are obviously concerned, the men were all Chinese-born and catered to the immigrant population. The Yakuza are concerned as well because A: they didn’t do it, B: they’re trying to make negotiations of their own with a Taiwanese drug lord, and C: whoever executed the Chinese bosses probably has the resources to go after THEM.

The police assign Detective Jojima, who has enough of his own problems. Things are tense in his marriage (so much so that his wife has started cheating on him) AND his daughter needs surgery because of a life threatening heart condition, but cannot afford the expenses (20 million yen, or about $170,000). After finding out that the Yakuza are equally confused about the murders, Jojima starts digging until he finally finds the culprits.

It’s a group of Chinese war orphans, ostracized by both the Triads and Yakuza, that have decided to band together and go into business for themselves. The first order of business is the elimination of their competition, which is done with brutal precision. However, taking down the Yakuza is a different matter, the Oyabun (the Yakuza equivalent of a Mafia “Don”) isn’t stupid, and has enough people and connections to make any assassination attempt difficult.

And it’s this point where things started looking rather familiar to me. Lessee, we got an upstart group of unknowns bent on taking out the “big guys”, a tormented police officer who loses himself in his job to escape his dismal home life; and an ultra-cool hitman with a stone-cold expression, trenchcoat, and wrap-around shades. Holy shit! It’s John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow, only with more gore. (And a LOT of sex acts that one usually only finds on the internet.)

This is my second movie by Takashi Miike and I’ve noticed that he has a Zucker/Abrahams kind of philosophy to filmmaking: If the last bit didn’t squick you, just wait a minute and the next one might. Which becomes very jarring when the movie shifts down a gear from it’s bombastic opening to a gritty detective drama, and then back up again. Unfortunately the last 30 seconds of the movie ended up completely invalidating it for me, but not so much that I’m going to tell you what happens.

Line of the movie: “But like they say – even a scarecrow keeps away the sparrows.”

Three and a half stars. I’ve got new socks on.

"Naked Killer" (1992)

(Originally released as Chiklo Gouyeung)

Starring: Chingmy Yau, Simon Yam, Carrie Ng, Madoka Sugawara, Wai, Yiu, Ken Lo

First, the lowdown: It’s chicks with guns. ‘Nuff said.

The first time I ever saw this film, it was an undubbed import, so while the subtitles were subtly Engrish-flavored, it still was a hoot to see. Now having rewatched a dubbed copy, I can say that it was an interesting argument AGAINST dubbing. All of the characters have annoyingly squeaky voices, and that in combination with the frenetic editing and quick pace of the action sequences can often set one’s nerves on edge. It’s kinda like when your 5-year old cousin got a “Tickle Me” Elmo for Christmas, that’s the only thing you heard for the next 6 hours.

Okay, rant over.

Spoiled daddy’s girl Kitty hates men, but likes their money. After avenging a woman she doesn’t know at a hairstylist’s, she ends up being pursued by the most ineffectual member of the HKPD, Tom: a man who was traumatized for accidentally shooting his brother and now throws up at the thought of drawing his weapon. One evening, she arrives home to discover that her bitchy stepmother has been banging a local stud, Cody, causing her father to fly into a homicidal rage. Father botches the job and ends up falling on the pair of scissors he was wielding. Whadda dope. Now REALLY pissed at men, Kitty stalks down the Cody at his place of work and proceeds to beat the ever-lovin’ snot out of him. However, she did not anticipate on the office to be filled with armed temps, and they quickly gain the upper hand. (As an aside here, what does it say about clerical work in China if one’s office is filled with fully-armed admin assistants and data-entry clerks?). Kitty manages to regroup, but not without taking one in the arm, and makes a strategic retreat. (Probably bemoaning the fact that she passed on that Louis Vuitton Kevlar set she saw in the mall earlier.) In her flight, she runs into Cindy, a Real McCoy professional assassin, who ends up bailing her ass out of the whole fiasco by employing physics-defying martial arts that we’ve come to expect from Chinese cinema. Seeing a kindred spirit, Cindy decides to take the snotty teen under her wing and begins training her on the deadly arts (aside from boot to the head, that is). After training for weeks, Kitty goes to work, only to find out that Tom has been crushing on her since he met her, the sap. Also, Cindy’s former prodigy, Princess (natch), has been vowing to sever all ties between them by any means.

As you’ve probably predicted, I’m not going to ruin the flick for you by giving you the end because I kinda like it. Yeah, the dubbing makes our main femme fatale come off as a bit of a valley girl (I kept waiting for her to pepper her speech with multiple “y’know?”s) This is an exploitive flick to it’s very core, but in a chiefly violent vein. There’s not much NAKED, but the KILLER part is played to the hilt. True Kitty, Cindy, and Princess all act pretty cheeky (and fondle each other A LOT), it’s also done subtly and done CLOTHED. Yet another thing that sets this apart from American cinema: over here there would be multiple scenes of pseudo-sex (with a possible full-frontal nudity shot) and the flick would’ve classified as an “Erotic Thriller”, whatever THAT means. So even though the theme of this movie is pretty naughty, and the dialog kinda on the double entendre side, Naked Killer only has one sex scene in it (come on, I know why you guys watch this crap), and barely any nudity.

Additionally, even though the focal characters are the embodiment of every Fanboy in America (minus the sailor outfits), the film doesn’t just typify one gender over another. Both male AND female roles are equally painted with broad strokes. If anything, Naked Killer is pretty equal-opportunity for a film whose main characters are gun-toting pseudo-lesbians. It is refreshing seeing a movie where the male lead isn’t there to protect the female lead (and isn’t ENTIRELY USELESS).

Line of the movie: “That bitch shot my ass off!” Trust me, that’s the least of your worries, Bub.

Five stars (subtitled), four stars (dubbed). In your face.

"Audition" (1999)

(Originally released as Odishon)

Starring: Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina, Tetsu Sawaki, Jun Kunimura, Renji Ishibashi

First, the lowdown: A lonely widower gets more than he bargains for when he holds auditions for a new girlfriend.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I love the Japanese ability to turn up the WTF factor in cinema. But before I get further into that, I’m going to divert a little bit. It’s not easy being a single guy, especially if you’re over 35. Most people consider the middle-aged to be more paternal than attractive, plus usually by that age you’re long since settled into whatever survival routine you developed early on. We live in a society where youth is king (but not king enough to be trusted to do anything on it’s own, apparently), so it’s of little surprise that people tend to look at 30 and 40 as being “old”.

In a hospital room a man, Shigeharu, pleads for the life of his ailing wife, Ryuko. The doctors can do nothing however, and the woman expires on her bed just as their son, Shigehiko enters to wish his mother well.

Fast forward seven years. Shigeharu and Shigehiko have since recovered from Ryuko’s death and are back into a normal routine. Shigeharu, however, is starting to feel the emptiness of singledom. In a bar he explains his frustrations to his friend, Yasuhisa, who works in the same television production company as Shigeharu. Yasuhisa comes up with an idea, however: a production is coming up that needs a female lead, so he suggests Shigeharu pick through the slush-pile of resumes and help with the interview process. While scanning through the resumes a background story catches his eye. The applicant, Asami, had devoted 12 years of her life to ballet, only to injure her hip before she could attend a London dance academy. Her life’s dream shattered, Asami has been dedicating her life to staying alive.

After an amusing audition sequence, we finally get to see Asami in person. Shigeharu is immediately smitten by the soft-spoken woman and eager to talk with her. Yasuhisa, however is uncertain, something about the girl doesn’t seem right to him. Ignoring Yasuhisa, Shigeharu sets up a date with Asami. The day of the meeting, Yasuhisa tells him that the record company Asami being connected with has never heard of her. What’s more, the producer for that company Asami referred to has been missing for a year. Shigeharu is still infatuated and dismisses it. The date is a success, and further ones are arranged, but the more contact he has with Asami the more things start to appear out of place with her.

Now, by this point you’re probably wondering where the WTF factor kicks in for this film. It occurs pretty abruptly, so much so that I’m not going to go into too much detail. I know that I’ve spoiled the ending for many a movie here before (mainly because I’m trying to warn you against them), but as queasy as parts of this flick made me, I was far too compelled to watch than to look away. What I will say is that the last 20-odd minutes are something that David Lynch would be proud of (with a John Waters-like nod thrown in).

Line of the movie: “Words create lies. Pain can be trusted.”

Five stars. Please recycle.

"Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls" (1970)

Starring: Dolly Read, Cynthia Meyers, Marcia McBroom, John Lazar, Michael Blodgett, David Gurian

First, the lowdown: It’s another boob-filled moral drama courtesy of Russ Meyer.

Not being a child of the Sixties (hell I’m barely a child of the Seventies), most of my knowledge of that decade (especially the last three years of it) comes from the books and movies of the time. When it comes to movies ABOUT the 1960’s, I always feel like I’m missing something. Mainly, with the exception of the Woodstock documentary, there’s always something that makes it look overwrought and kinda phony. Then again, saying that movies are known for their accuracy is like claiming that the Last of the Mohicans is a solid portrayal of the Native Americans.

I’m thinking Jack Chick is a BIG Russ Meyer fan. (In case you don’t know who Jack Chick is, he makes those annoying church tracts you find in bus depots telling you how much Jesus loves you and that you’ll burn in hell if you don’t believe.) This movie plays out like an object lesson on the 700 Club, only with more nudity. It has been argued in the past that the only way for early filmmakers to justify gratuitous nudity and sex was to make everything a moral drama where the heathen nekkid people were shown the ills of their wicked ways. And considering how actively adult filmmakers were prosecuted in the 1970s by sweaty men in bad suits, any loophole at all needed to be exploited.

We open with Kelly, the leader of a Josie and the Pussycats-esque rock band (complete with a male manager who looks like Jim Morrison meets Kurt Russell in all the wrong ways). After a performing a disappointing set in a mid-western high school, she spontaneously decides to drag her merry band to Los Angeles so they can make it big. Along the way, she drops in on her long lost aunt Susan, who has inherited the family fortune (and looks about the same age as Kelly). Aunt Susan’s sleazy lawyer voices the audience’s opinion about how diverting large sums of money to a relative that hasn’t been verified is kinda STOOPID but Susan doesn’t care and instead introduces Kelly and crew to the swinging party scene that LA has to offer. After a montage of randomly spliced quotations from the partygoers (my favorite: “You’re a moonchild.” “And you’re a bitch.”), starring nearly every person who has ever been in a Russ Meyer flick (including the bug-eyed, slack jawed Princess Livingston), Kelly is introduced to the ringleader of this motley crew of paisley, sideburns and fringe: Ronnie “Z-Man” Barzell (who looks like a young, gay Jimmy Smits). He is intrigued by Kelly’s plucky band, and offers them a record contract. Meanwhile, multiple seductions take place: Morrison/Russell manager guy gets seduced by a Mimi Rogers-looking porn actress; Kelly gets played by local lothario Lance Rock (who’s portrayed by a gay actor trying so desperately to be straight it’s hilarious); bassist Casey shacks up with sultry lesbian Roxanne; and drummer Petronella falls for the only sympathetic character in the whole goddamned movie: Law student Emerson Thorne. Everything seems to go hunky-dory; with montages highlighting Kelly skyrocketing to fame, drug use, and lots of boobies. However, Morrison/Russell manager gets fed up with lurking in the shadows of Kelly’s glory (as well as the kinky sex from the porn star), Petronella nearly ruins her relationship by getting seduced by a philosophizing boxer, and Casey spends most of her lesbian life in a downer induced haze. After having his manhood challenged by the porn actress, our wayward manager goes into an Quaalude and alcohol-fueled depression and tries killing himself during Kelly’s television debut, only to end up paralyzing himself from the waist down. What a dope. At this point Kelly starts thinking that she may have been wasting her life in the Land of Make-Believe and tries to amend her ways. It’s a great flick and makes you want to find God.

Line of the movie: “Have you run an audit on her books yet? Or are you still screwing on faith?” Hell hath no fury like a gay Jimmy Smits spurned.

Four stars. May contain peanuts.