Friday, September 3, 2010

A Short Synosis Of The Dead Or Alive Trilogy By Takashi Miike

By Ronald Erickson

The Dead or Alive Trilogy belongs on your must see movie downloads list simply because it's so crazy. You've seen action movies, you've seen over the top action movies, but you've never seen anything quite like these three flicks from Mike Takashi . Every one is out to top the last in terms of sheer craziness.

Dead or Alive Part One was designed to be a way to bring together two hot Japanese stars, being Sho Aikawa, the Japanese Pacino, and Riki Takeuchi, the Japanese DeNiro, so Dead or Alive is sort of the Japanese Heat. However, it's really nothing like Heat, and it's sort of designed to fix the problem with that movie, being that the ending wasn't quite the climax most viewers were hoping for.

We can't spoil the ending of Dead or Alive for you, and you wouldn't believe us if we did. Just check it out and see for yourself. The whole movie is designed to be non-stop, exciting, fast paced, and entirely over the top the whole way through.

The second in the trilogy offers a different sort of approach with the same crazy style. This one recasts the two leads as two new characters. Where the first had the two as rival cop and gangster, this one has them as a pair of hitmen who grew up together and who donate all of their money to fighting diseases in developing countries.

The first movie in the series has a very negative edge to it, it's very harsh. This one is all heart, it's very positive, so it's interesting to see the whole thing flipped on its head. It also deals a little more responsibly with the cost of violence on a person's soul.

The third takes the whole series in an all new direction, going into science fiction akin to Blade Runner or Robocop, that sort of cyberpunk, androids and megacorporations sort of theme. It's probably the least interesting of the trilogy, but it's really interesting for how it ties the whole thing together.

Check out Deadly Outlaw Rekka if you want more Miike. It has the same sort of over the top, insane attitude towards the story, and recasts Riki Takeuchi in the title role, as he seeks to avenge the death of his surrogate father. What really makes that movie work is the style. The story is standard revenge stuff, but it's all set to an alternative rock album from the seventies by the Traveling Sunflower Band, and the action is all out stuff. Takeuchi also turns in an interesting performance as the unstable and unpredictable Rekka.

The trailer for the first movie in the trilogy proudly declares that Miike is the mad dog of Japanese film, and it's true, that's not just hyperbole. The guy makes something like four or five movies a year, and has created over one hundred total over the course of his career. Not all of them are of the same quality, but for just one in ten movies to be great, that's ten great films, which is more than most directors ever get a chance to put out. - 40732

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