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Yakuza Demon Actor: Riki Takeuchi Number of Items: 1 Format: Color, Widescreen Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Studio: Pathfinder Home Ente Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2004-12-28 Buy from Amazon

From Description Honor, betrayal and mind-blowing action as only acclaimed cult director Takashi Miike can bring! Seiji and Yoshifumi are the only members of the Muto branch of the Date Family. The two respect and love their leader, Mr. Muto, like a father and the three share a firm bond. But their fate is sealed when the Family is involved in a conflict. Muto is unable to pay his share of funds for the oncoming battle but tells executives of the Family that he would fight at the front line instead. In the wish to protect Muto, Seiji has him arrested by the police. Ignoring the Family executives' mocks of "Muto escaped to prison", Seiji prepares for the battle and attacks like a demon on behalf of his boss…

Customer Reviews: Total numer of reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.0 "Tame for Miike..." For one of my favorite directors, Takashi Miike, this is a more sane offering. It's a Yakuza brotherhood, betrayal and revenge flick basically. Like many Miike offerings it has sporatic bursts of violence mixed with scenes of serious dialogue and lots of eating here. I appreciated the scenes of the Japanese countryside, nice break from many of his films being shot in and around the Shinjuku district of Tokyo (though I love that too). For fans of his all action, bizarre extravaganzas, this might be a bit slow though I found enough redeeming qualities to enjoy. The last line of the movie is what I'll close with, "You're way cool man." ""Yakuza is not about how many men you have."" When Yakuza Demon opens with crime boss, Muto (played with sad elegance by Kaichi Iwaki), flying a model of a Zero near sunrise in a large field, his smile wistful as he works the controls, spinning the toy plane through slanting rays of the rising sun, the viewer is immediately tuned into the kind of doomed honor that will mark this film. Briefly told: a foot soldier in a very minor, poor Yakuza family runs slightly amuck, protecting the family's boss who has gone crossways with the powers that be. The soldier (played by Yakuza and V-film legend Riki Takeuchi) is nicknamed "Sinji the ripper" and with good reason. Now, both sides are out to destroy this tiny triad. What no one can anticipate, though, is the loyalty and love that bind this tiny family together. Takashi Miike is an astounding filmmaker. This film has a lonely, abandoned feeling about it - a sad tone - that Miike produces simply with shot composition, lighting, and editing. There is a particular sequence (when Yoshi, the youngest member of the family, goes to meet his girlfriend and must confront apposing gang members alone) that creates a near overwhelming feeling of pathetic doom. Perhaps Miike is something very rare - a kind of freak, maybe. Like the child that can play a piano at two, or a kid from the cornfields that can swat homers while still in kindergarten; that is to say, a natural. His work seems effortlessly original. -Mykal Banta "Nice job" Seiji (Takeuchi Riki) loves his boss Muto like his own father, so much that when Muto's life is in danger he hides him in jail on a minor charge and pulls off a much mpre cavelier assasination attempt then asked of Muto (Seiji aims for the big boss) of a much stronger (500 to 1 man ratio) yakuza boss in Muto's place to protect his elder from the danger of this job Muto must accomplish to repay an outstanding debt. The syndicate to which Muto's family belong can't take they retalitory heat and they hang Seiji and his family out to dry. Seiji was taken in as an orphean by Muto and he and Yoshifumi (his "brothers") are all that Seiji has in this world to comfort him from the Kikou (the voice through which the dead cry) that haunt his soul. This movie, although shot on a low budget is in my opinion superior to many "theater" Yakuza movies currently offered up in Japan. Takeuchi brillantly plays a truly Sympathtic character that epitmizes the Honor, Brotherhood and Courage that make one a true yakuza brother. I won't give away the movie with a full synopsis (although you will find a "spoiler" on the DVD box), but I will say this movie has less action and more drama than the other yakuza movies offered up by Miike-san. All in all not a bad flic, and the ending is particularly evocative.