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Dead or Alive (Unrated Director's Cut) Actor: Sho Aikawa Director: Takashi Miike Number of Items: 1 Picture Format: Pan & Scan Format: Color, Widescreen Audience Rating: Unrated Running Time: 105 minutes Studio: Kino International Region Code: 1 Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2004-10-05 Buy from Amazon |
 "Oh yea!!"I happened to catch this gem of a flick in a small Portland, Or. theater on a whim in 2002. I've been looking it to own ever since. This movie takes every cliche and element of asian cinema and blows it up. The beginning of fast paced, very brutal and very stylish. The overall story is very tragic, noble and honorable. Then comes the ending...very unexpected and one of the best I've ever seen. I can't say what happens but there is no way it can ever be beat. "Flabbergasting!"The first and last five minutes of DEAD OR ALIVE are truly you-hadda-be-there experiences... and the ending.... well, the ending isn't just over-the-top, it's fall-off-a-cliff-and-no-bottom-to-hit. This overheated crime noir is the brainchild of Takashi Miike, Japan's answer to Ken Russell and Quentin Tarantino rolled into one, a workaholic who in only a decade has something like forty-five films to his name. Here he pits the sneering Riki Takeuchi against the cool-eyed Sho Aikawa (both direct-to-video crime-movie stars in Japan), with the former being a yakuza with ambitions to ace everyone else out and the latter being a vice cop obsessed with squeezing him to pay for his daughters operation. The two ooze through Japan's underworld, where stomachs full of ramen noodles are blown all over the camera lens and you're as likely to die of being drowned in a wading pool of excrement as you are being shotgunned at your birthday party while in a stork suit. What makes Miike more than just an exploitationist is his unusual attention to character and incident. Beyond and above the noise and splatter of his images, there are real people on screen here: Takeuchi's criminal is so hardened that he can't even hear the cries of despair from the younger brother he allegedly did so much of this for, and Aikawa's cop is so estranged from his family, he's almost going through the motions of trying to save them. Then both of them are jarred into action by circumstances, and that leads to the showdown I mentioned above. Which REALLY has to be seen to be believed... or disbelieved. There are two other DOA movies, but interestingly, they have no common elements except a) crime and b) the presence of the two leads. Call them "side-quels," if you will, and here's hoping the rest of them find their way to the USA sooner rather than later...  "Tryed to Flush it, but It still Stinks"You know you're in trouble when a film starts off with a fast paced, disjointed montage equivilent to a bad music video, complete with horribly dull, not-so-heavy metal guitar wanking and noodling. Set this luke warm music to random images of the 'ol ultra violence and a little "T &A" thrown in for good measure. Yawn. This over hyped [stuff] will have you hitt'n the fast frwd button after the first 6 minutes to get to all those crazy, outta this world fight scenes that you keep reading about, but the pay off just never fully comes. Trust me, you've seen all the fast cutt gun shoot outs a millon times over if you're into this genere. What you do get with "Dead or Alive"i s a few really great, yet quick, random, taboo"shock" scenes that Takashi Miike is known for, but their inclusion in the film feels a little forced. Unless you are a hardcore fan of this type of action film mediocrity, save yo money and rent this first.  "out of control"Dead or Alive is very over the top. A decent, uproarious send up of Japanese gangsta' films with MANY surprises. One of the best yet weirdest endings of all time. |
