Ishkur, of the Guide To Electronic Music, in his description of J-Pop described his understanding of Japan by likening it to that scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? when they pass by Toontown and everything is loud, candy colored and exploding… Miike’s craziest movie moments back up this assertion whether they be Cop and Yakuza confrontations leading to the total annihilation of Japan (my favorite movie ending ever), musical numbers from a family debating how they’ll dispose of a dead body or someone writhing around the floor of a room ankle deep with breast milk. There’s something so deeply fractured about Miike and even though he has a few kid-friendly movies under his belt, I still think that there’s something particularly wrong with that. As if by some strange logic, someone in the middle of The Great Yokai War is going to have their foot severed with piano wire. At the same time, Miike is probably the most unpredictable filmmaker working today and just because he made a movie where a yakuza assassin fires darts from her vagina doesn’t necessarily mean that he can’t keep it clean and deliver something meaningless and stupid that you can still bring your kids to see.
I don’t know anything about Yatterman, though. My tolerance for anime is well documented here. I just don’t much like it. But this is Miike we’re talking about and when he tones it down for the kids, his movies tend to be even closer to the edge but without any nudity or evisceration. They get even more colorful and louder and stupider. Evident in the trailer for his upcoming adaptation of the anime, Yatterman.
December 9, 2008 5:16 pm
Cool ~ definitely looks interesting!