Dead or Alive (1999)

Takashi Miike's first film to achieve any semblance of notoriety in the US, this film certainly feels like one designed explicitly to attract attention to the filmmaker. The first ten minutes are a breathless, breakneck introduction to the amped-up uber-Yakuza world in which this film's characters reside. And the last ten minutes, quite simply, comprise one of the greatest climaxes of any movie in history. Shame then about the other 90 minutes, which for the most part will be thoroughly familiar to anyone who's seen more than one Yakuza flick. There's still some odd bits of business interspersed -- Miike delights in showing the audience things they've never seen before, and at the very least this is the only film I know of that has a stripper drowned in a kiddie-pool filled with her own feces, not to mention a man in a chicken suit being shot repeatedly -- but it's surprisingly pro forma for a calling-card movie. But believe me, that ending makes it all worth the time. It's that damn good.

Grade: C+