Like a Dragon
AKA: Ryû ga gotoku: gekijô-ban
Dir. Takashi Miike (Japan 2007)
Rating: 3 out of 4 Stars (good)
Review by: David Austin

Like a Dragon is the rare film that is actually improved by its fundamental incoherence. Plot twists that would be irritating in a movie that followed logic or made sense are just dandy in Like a Dragon – Takashi Miike’s wacky adaptation of the “Yakuza” video game. It is somewhat tame stuff by Miike standards – the sex and violence have been toned way down, but it is also good-natured, tongue-in-cheek and just plain fun. And that is not to say that Like a Dragon isn’t an insanely violent film – it’s just slightly more Three Stooges than, say, people being hung on hooks and doused in tempura oil.

The totally disjointed plot may or may not focus on the theft of a huge sum of money from a yakuza syndicate. In reality there are about 7 different plots that intermittently intersect over the course of one long, hot night. The “main” plot line involves Kiryu (Kazuki Kitamura), a stock heroic Yakuza straight out of a 1960’s ninkyo eiga. He’s out to reunite a little girl with her mother, though it’s never made clear why. Kiryu is pursued by the manic Majima (New Graveyard of Honor’s Goro Kishitani in an eye-patch and filigreed jacket), possibly Miike’s most fun character since Tadanobu Asano’s Kakihara in Ichi the Killer. Majima is a baseball-bat wielding lunatic who is ought to get Kiryu for some unmentioned slight and is happy to smash up half of Tokyo in the meantime. The other main, almost totally unrelated plotline involves a couple of young lovers who start a crime spree seemingly on a whim. Also on hand are some goofy bank robbers caught in a sticky hostage situation, the police who are staking them out (including Sho Aikawa), another detective who seems to do nothing but wander the streets, a sado-masochistic information broker (Yoshiyoshi Arakawa), a Korean assassin, and an assortment of gangsters, night club hosts and bosses. Some plots work better than others – Majima steals every scene while I could not wait for the scenes with the two kids to end.

Miike working commercial is rarely Miike at his best – Like a Dragon doesn’t hold a patch on Ichi the Killer, Audition or Visitor Q. However, this is still light years ahead of crap like Andromedia, Tennen Shojo Man Next, or even the disappointing Great Yokai War. As a pure piece of entertainment, Like a Dragon succeeds in spades. By the way, last week I pointed to Chanbara Beauty as an example of the weaknesses of video game adaptations (see review here) , and said that the world still awaits the great video game adaptation. Well, the world is still waiting, but on the basis of Like a Dragon I can say someone is at least trying.

LIKE A DRAGON IS PLAYING AT THE NYAFF ON THURSDAY, JULY 3 AT 2:10 PM AT THE IFC CENTER

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Assembly
AKA: Ji Jie Hao
Dir. Feng Xiaogang (China 2007)
Rating: 3 out of 4 Stars (good)
Review by: David Austin

This film, set primarily during the Chinese civil war between the Communists and the Nationalists following the end of WWII, is simultaneously an extremely old fashioned war film and an heir to the groundbreaking techniques developed in Saving Private Ryan. Like that film, the battle scenes are punishingly brutal with desaturated colors, shaky hand-held camerawork, and showers of dirt and water constantly obscuring the picture. Similarly, the film is as gory as any horror film, with spurting arteries, mangled bodies and limbs blown asunder. Also, as in that Spielberg’s film, those techniques are in service of an archetypal story of honor, determination and the horrors of war.

The film tells the true tale of Gu Zidi, an officer in the Chinese Communist Army. Gu and his undermanned, under-armed company are placed on the front line where they are told to defend a difficult position against nationalist assault until they hear the retreat call. After a heroic battle, all but Gu are killed. These scenes are straightforward and well-crafted, successfully evoking the chaos and sudden death of the battlefield. The potential propaganda aspects of the film have been dialed down to appeal to a broader audience – to some extent this story could have taken place on any battlefield. However, the rest of the film, detailing Gu’s efforts to have his men properly honored and work through his own feelings of guilt, bogs down a little in repetitious plot developments. While Zhang Hanyu turns in an excellent performance as Gu, most of the cast is fairly interchangeable – only Wenkang Yuan as a stereotypical coward who learns to fight and Chao Deng as Gu’s postwar friend are allowed to stand out from the crowd. I actually found myself wondering during the second half of the film whether the achronology of Flags of our Fathers, which so harmed that film, might have served better here. Regardless, Assembly is a well put-together film that succeeds in telling a classic story.

ASSEMBLY IS PLAYING AT THE NYAFF ON WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25 AT 6:00 PM AT THE IFC CENTER