Takashi Miike Movies I've Seen (Part One)

Takashi Miike is a Japanese director. He is immensely prolific. To illustrate, he is listed as the director of 7 different movies in 2001 alone. He is famed for his ultra-violent, post-modern style, but has made more straight-forward movies, and has even done kid's movies. I've seen a few of these movies, and have already mentioned a couple in other lists. Let's go through the ones I've seen, this will be the first of a series which will hopefully be added to in time. (N.B. These are not in any particular order, and I have tried to keep spoilers out of it. Why not just read it and quit your bitching?)

Izo [2004] 

Izo in the flower field [source]

1 Sentence Plot Synopsis: A dead Samurai travels through space, time, and logic while fighting gods and men to get vengeance on those who had him killed.
Highlights: Izo meets American wrestler Bob Sapp, Izo meets the earth goddess, Izo takes on modern Tokyo. It's also got Takeshi Kitano. Izo in the flower field with the talking flowers is also a thing of great, crazy beauty, and the musical interludes are hypnotic.

Bob Sapp with a necklace made of anal beads fighting a Samurai ghost. Worlds colliding.

Madness: Maddest thing ever  *****     
Gore:  A lot of bloodshed, decapitations, and odd injuries ****
Story: Hardly any story, just 2 hours of allegorical violence   **       
Overall: ***1/2 
Thoughts: Some really great stuff here, but definitely not for the casual viewer. Insane, violent and philosophical.

The Great Yokai War [2005] 

The Gods all have a sit down [source]

1 Sentence Plot Synopsis: After being selected in a folk festival, a bullied schoolboy is turned into the hero of a war between Japanese gods and an evil demon.
Highlights: Any of the gods, all of which are really interesting. Also, the main bad guy is a genuine nutbar, far too evil for a mere kids movie. He seems to hate the kids sidekick, a pet hamster more than anything, subjecting it to repeated abuse. My favourite gods: the guy whose head can grow at will; the woman with the long neck, and the wall with an eye on it. Cer-azzy. 
Madness: Japanese gods are mad, but are dealt with here respectfully  ***            
Gore: Not much except for hamster torture *
Story: Pretty solid kids story, and the plot is resolved nicely too  ****    
Overall: ***
Thoughts: A really cool kids story, with cool gods and fun action. However, it is still violent and even a little sexy (that river god is a babe, and the bad guy's henchwoman is the leader of the Crazy 88 from Kill Bill vol. 1). Good fun.

 Happiness Of The Katakuris [2001] 

A demented movie poster, complete with claymation monster in the corner [source]

1 Sentence Plot Synopsis (attempt): A dysfunctional family try to make their guest house work despite it being in the middle of nowhere, and the bizarre deaths of all the guests who do turn up. It also has musical numbers.
Highlights: The claymation opening is a good sideshow; the songs are good, especially where the whole family join in; the unshaven Japanese man who tricks the idiot daughter into believing he is a British royal; the zombie dance.The biggest highlight for me is that this was a remake of a pretty ordinary Korean movie called the Quiet Family, but bears as much resemblance as the earth to the moon.

The family tries to sing to cheer up their son. This doesn't work at my family, where he would be told to 'man up.' [source]

Madness: Pretty friggin' crazy, even by Miike standards *****           
Gore: Not much, although there are corpses **
Story: A nice crazy slice of life, but not much story ***           
Overall: ****
Thoughts: I've already mentioned this movie in another article. It's Insane, oddly paced, with some musical numbers really failing, and the story doesn't really go very far. However, the positives more than make up for the weaknesses to make this, somehow, a must-see.
Bonus fact: The isolated place they live in is a lot like the place near where my parents live, an remote Scottish town in a valley where there is no phone reception, and stunningly, no internet- in the year 2012.

13 Assassins [2010] 

Another cool movie poster [source]

1 Sentence Plot Synopsis: A Group of honourable samurai seek to assassinate a power-crazed, psychopathic noble, who will come to political eminence if he lives.
Highlights:The entire battle scene is great film-making, superbly staged and breath-taking. Other highlights include the burning bulls, the limbless woman and of course 'TOTAL MASSACRE.'
Madness: Straight Forward, especially by Miike standards**
Gore: Some pretty gruesome massacres ****
Story: Straight Forward Samurai movie ****            
Overall: *****
Thoughts: Again, I have already mentioned this movie before. A surprisingly straight forward samurai action movie with a fantastic battle, and one of the most despicable bad guys in all movies. Terrific.

One more thing: plot synopsis are hard for demented movies. Hope you enjoyed this, because I've already basically written the next one (update, it can be found when you click-a-majic this button.