Shinjuku Triad Society

Home
Smell the Movies
Smell the TV

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Year:	1995
Country of origin:	Japan
Director:	Takashi Miike
Genre:	Japanese gangsters
Starring:	Kippei Shiina, Tomorowo Taguchi, Takeshi Caesar, Ren Ôsugi
Rating:	4/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258960/
Tagline:	No tagline
Favourite line:	N/A - Subtitled

Takashi Miike must be one scary motherfucker, and no mistake.

The plot, or as much as I could glean:
A morally bankrupt detective in Shinjuku, the 'place to be' in Tokyo apparently, is assigned to watch over a new Triad gang muscling into the territory and prevent a full scale Mafia war erupting. When the boss of the new Triad employs the brother of said detective to act as his lawyer, things can only get personal.
And blood will surely flow.

That's about all I could work out in this confusing, ultra-violent though ultimately entertaining tale of Japanese mob culture.
No surprises with Miike at the helm that pretty much every taboo you can name is tackled here, with nerry a flinch from behind the directorial lens: anal male rape to coerce confessions, throat slashings, rent boys, vaginal cavity searches, blow jobs in public toilets and more violence than you could wave a medieval mace at make this one not for the weak of stomach.
And this is proper violence, kids, not that sanitised, Hollywood fetish version that we were brainwashed with in the eighties and nineties from American efforts.
This looks like it hurts.
A lot.
Whilst not as accomplished as some of his later work - Audition and Ichi the killer being two firm favourites when we have the grand kids over in this house - this is still dizzyingly engaging, though there is the suspicion that you are watching against your better judgement, trying to look away but too morbidly curious to actually manage it.
If you want intensity, can cope with subtitles (yes, I'm looking at you Thick McThick of Thicksbury Avenue) and aren't averse to sampling the cinematic offerings of radically different cultures, this should be right up your dirty pipes.