Shinjuku Triad Society (1995)

Early work from Takashi Miike is tighter and more controlled than his later yakuza extravaganzas, but as a trade-off it's also more generic and less manaically inspired. Still, there's quite a bit to hold the interest here, and it's interesting to note the nascent traces of Miike's later obsessions (familial love, violence & sex intertwined, anal violation, displacement in a foreign land). The violent content is grimmer than usual, without that one-level remove that usually comes with Miike's hyperstylized world; the film's rampant homosexual activity could be read as a logical extension of the strong male bonding that usually pops up in the yakuza/gangster genre, though I doubt that it was the first film to walk that road.

Grade: B-