Truly Dreadful Film

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Dead or Alive: Final is the third and last instalment in Takashi Miike's Dead or Alive trilogy. The only point this film has in common with its predecessors are the facts that all films are directed by Takashi Miike and feature Japanese V-cinema cult actors Show Aikawa and Riki Takeuchi in the lead roles. Dead or Alive: Final isn't even a classic gangster movie but rather a dystopian science-fiction movie. It's not as quirky, explicit and brutal as the first instalment of the trilogy but more vivid, surprising and experimental than the second movie. Considering the long list of characters and balanced mixture between the first two instalments, it makes me think of Takashi Miike's third part of the Black Society trilogy where Ley Lines had a very similar approach if compared to its predecessors Shinjuku Triad Society and Rainy Dog.The story line is quite unusual, even by Takashi Miike's experimental standards. The movie is set in the year 2346 in Yokohama where people of several cultures coexist. The movie's dialogues are in Cantonese, English and Japanese but different people seem to understand one another effortlessly despite speaking different languages which proves that society has become very educated, multicultural and polyglot. However, after numerous violent wars in the past, Yokohama's mayor has established radical birth control to prevent further conflicts. It has actually become illegal to give birth to children and homosexuality is praised as a political and social ideology. People are forced to take pills to suppress their desire to have sexual intercourse and give birth to children. Those who disobey are hunted down. Riki Takeuchi plays a cop that is hunting down social outcast living in hiding to have families. Show Aikawa plays a human-like robot who gets in touch with one of these communities by pure coincidence after saving a young kid that gets attacked in front of him in a restaurant. The two characters end up fighting each other but soon realize that they have more things in common than they would have thought.Among the movie's strengths, one has to note a quite quirky and surprising story line that ends in a very surprising way such as the first part of the trilogy. The acting performances by Show Aikawa and Riki Takeuchi are outstanding and they have great chemistry on screen. The supporting actors are also doing a great job. Richard Chung convinces particularly as manipulative gay mayor and Josie Ho shines as female rebel that has to find a sense of life after most members of her clan got betrayed and assassinated. The settings of the film are often abandoned, broken and dirty which is typical for Takashi Miike's movies and give this film a slightly gloomy atmosphere. The sky is mostly yellow-brownish which adds an interesting tone as well. The movie is obviously inspired by several dystopian science-fiction stories. The pills that suppress the will to reproduce could make you think of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 while the presence of robots is closely inspired by Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Movies such as Blade Runner and The Matrix seem to have influenced parts of the script as well. On the other side, Takashi Miike's movie isn't a cheap copy of these well-known stories and he manages to add his own touch to it thanks to the great acting performances, quirky story line and quite vivid action sequences filmed by local Hong Kong choreographers.The most negative element of the film is that it rarely looks futuristic. You can still see old cars, cell phones from the early millennium and simplistic weapons that seem out of place in the twenty-fourth century. While the action sequences look great, the special effects are very artificial and look as if they were taken from an old manga. The movie would be more convincing if it took place in the near future than in the twenty-fourth century.In the end, each of the three instalments of Takashi Miike's Dead or Alive trilogy complements one another perfectly and shows the diversified skills of its director and main actors. It's a matter of taste whether you prefer a fast-paced and brutal gangster thriller, a thoughtful drama or a vivid science-fiction movie. I liked all these movies but I would probably prefer the first for its intensity, put this third film in second place for its quirky creativity and might put the second movie last because of its minor lengths in the middle section. Still, fans of Japanese cinema should be familiar with the entire trilogy and purchase the excellent boxed set by Arrow Video and also try to buy Arrow Video's boxed set of Takashi Kiike's Black Society trilogy.

The original Dead or Alive (1999) was a straight to video police/Yakuza cross-over that opened with a rock-video style montage and climaxed with a scene of jaw-dropping implausibility. It took on the clichés and characteristics of the usual police dramas that we're familiar with, but infused them with all manner of bold and brash directorial flourishes and much in the way of attention grabbing shock sequences. This second follow up - which takes the same lead actors from the first two DOA films and drops then into a whole new setting as entirely new characters (giving us a sequel in the thematic sense alone) - tones down the excessive violence and the outré spectacle even further than the preceding Dead or Alive 2: Birds (2000) - to give us an oddly uneven film that strives to tie together the various ideas of destiny, identity, karma and reincarnation, whilst simultaneously offering us a strange combination of the worlds of Ridley Scott, Wong Kar-Wai, Shinya Tsukamoto and Takashi Kitano, respectively. What we have then is an increasingly odd construction - part action film, part cyber-punk pastiche - bringing to a close this always daring Miike Takashi-directed meta-trilogy, in a way that will please all fans... without necessarily blowing them away.With these factors in mind I would definitely agree with the general online consensus - which considers this to be a step-back from the first two films, in particular the lyrical splendour of Birds (which could easily be listed as one of the best films of Miike's career thus far) - with the film in question seriously lacking that particular work's emphasis on character, or indeed, the first film's kaleidoscopic disregard for logic and convention. What we have instead is a fun little film that meanders along from one cyber-punk cliché to the next, occasionally coasting on a wave of broad humour, or a particularly nice directorial flourish; such as the title of the film appearing in the background on a giant CGI gunship, or the shoot-out in the alleyway that is incredibly well choreographed. None of this really adds up to a satisfactory whole, however, with the film, for me, seeming to be far too disjointed and direction-less, while the pacing, on a number of occasions, can seriously drag.Unlike much of Miike's work, Dead or Alive: Final can be vaguely described as "science fiction"; taking place in a post apocalyptic Yokohama, where the population is kept under rigid control by a half-crazed homosexual general and his army of secret police. Riki Takeuchi (Fudoh: A New Generation) is the hard boiled chief of one such unit, locking horns with Sho Aikawa's (Gozu) mellowed out drifter, who has taken up with the gang of idealistic rebels that have kidnapped Takeuchi's son. However, in true DOA style, the plot of the film is mostly nonsensical; ripped off from a variety of other sources such as THX-1138, Blade Runner, Tetsuo: The Iron Man/Body Hammer, Terminator 2: Judgement Day and The Matrix; with the whole thing used as nothing more than a concept that links these two continually warring characters thematically as well as metaphorically. As a result, there's no real dramatic tension; though a brief "Terminator 2 like" relationship between Aikawa's replicant character, Ryô, the wife of the rebel-leader and a wandering young boy suggest hidden depths and sub-textual notions of family and humanity, they're soon quickly replaced by more action and sporadic attempts at humour.There are still a number of things to recommend, however; chiefly, the film's visual design, which is presented in an Edward Hopper-esquire colour scheme of autumn yellows, vivid greens and the occasional cool blue. There are also a couple of fairly impressive action sequences that draw more on physical combat as opposed to the gun play that we've come to expect from Miike's work and the DOA series as a whole; with the scene in which replicant Ryô has to escape from Officer Honda and his gang of armed mercenaries (whilst also protecting a young boy caught in up in the midst of the action) being an obvious jaw-dropping standout. Once again, there are fine performances from the two leads, with Takeuchi reprising his role as the sort of antagonist-like character to Aikawa lovable rouge, while the supporting characters, padded out by a largely Chinese cast and a few characters that actually speak in broken-English, help to lend a sense of credibility to Miike's largely 21st century depiction of the far off future (recalling Jean Luc Godard's retro-futurist classic Alphaville, as well as Michael Winterbottom's subsequent Code 46).What follows is all in good fun, moving from scenes of staggering action to more gentle moments between Ryô and his adopted family; with Miike and his scriptwriter making subtle allusions to that old sci-fi staple of the robots being more human than the humans. Sadly, none of these ideas really come to anything substantial though, with the film ultimately ending up as a visually impressive slice of sci-fi hokum with lots of Miike-like humour thrown in for good measure. Nothing here comes close to matching the level of brilliance that Miike has previously established - not only with the preceding Dead or Alive 2: Birds, but of course, with great films like Shinjuku Triad Society, Audition, Gozu, The Bird People in China and Visitor Q - but die-hard fans of the director are sure to find something to enjoy; if not the comical sparring of Takeuchi and the always enjoyable Aikawa, then certainly the rampaging sight of a gigantic Day-Glo robot with a purple penis head. Yes, you have been warned...

This is a film that has to be taken in context. It shouldn't be seen unless you've seen the first two films, but the sort of people seeing this film will probably own the box set, or at least know someone who does. And you shouldn't go in expecting Blade Runner; the films budget doesn't stretch quite that far, and it's a far more zany ride.Essentially the film is a science fiction set in future Yokohama (shot in Hong Kong as is obvious) about a society where it's illegal to procreate. Sho Aikawa reprises a similar role from Dead or Alive 2 and Riki Takeuchi is a detective for the birth control cops. Takashi Miike isn't one to give all of his reasons to you on a platter, but one can assume that the law on procreation (enforced by giving people the pill) is there because of over population, increased life spans and so forth. Interestingly the dialogue in the film is mainly Cantonese, whilst Sho and Riki (who play their parts, as always, brilliantly) speak Japanese, and a few speak English. People have criticised the English as being wooden, but I found no problems with it. Also, another person found the homosexuality themes throughout the film to be offensive; said that Takashi Miike was anti-homosexual. He may very well be (and not all artists have to be left-wing), but I can't see this film as an insult to homosexuals. He merely calls back philosophies of ancient Greece when homo or bisexuality was more common. The film contains similar proportions of action-packed and poignant moments to DoA 2, although in this film the action is more martial-arts based, and are done in a very good Hong Kong style. The cinematography in the film is very nice on the eyes, with symmetrical shots, a good control on colours to give the air a polluted look, and it's nice to see uncut, lengthy shots that are so rare in Hollywood these days. Basically, there's a lot to like in this film: a good sense of humour, exciting action and some very beautiful moments. It's a great finish to the series. You could criticise it for being a bit cheesy, but isn't that part of the charm?

The third part of Miike's Dead or Alive trilogy is as unrelated to the first two parts as they were to each other, more or less. Show Aikawa and Riki Takeuchi are back again for the lead roles, but this time the movie thrusts us forward 300 years or so into the future... post apocalypse.Riki plays a tough cop, an enforcer for the corrupt city's extreme police policies, and Show plays a drifter who hooks up with a bunch of the city's oppressed rebels. The film must have been shot in Hong Kong, as most of the rest of the cast are Cantonese speakers, with Terence Yin and Josie Ho being the most recognisable faces. There's also a HK stunt crew on hand for the films action sequences, which are very cool in a HK-via-Miike style.This could be fodder for a dreadful low budget B-movie, but in Miike's hands it of course becomes something more interesting. It's quite a slow, thoughtful film that meanders along and doesn't try to force anything down the viewer's throat. Characters are rounded and interesting and the plot an interesting but fairly loose framework for the story to be hung on.All in all a fairly low key effort until the action scenes, which show Miike's increasing prowess at directing and choreographing very nice action. Watching the short making of with Show & Riki in wire rigs is really fun - you can tell they were having a great time The finale of the film tries to tie together the 3 Dead Or Alive movies, which is quite unnecessary because each one is really self contained. Miike's explanation of the connection is very funny though, and caps the series off quite nicely.Not as deep or well developed as DOA2, not as outrageous and intense as DOA1... still another good Miike movie though.