See you on July 10 to (re)see one of the most memorable trilogies in Japanese cinema: “Dead Or Alive”! Takashi Miike’s 3 feature films are being released in restored versions.
On July 10, Splendor Films is releasing the cult Dead or Alive trilogy in theaters in a restored version! Directed by the very prolific and iconoclastic Takashi Miike, the 3 feature films left their mark on Japanese cinema in the early 2000s.
A cult trilogy!
In the first part, released in 1999 in the land of the Rising Sun, the policeman Jojima wages merciless war against the gangster Ryuichi. The latter is trying to take control of the Japanese underworld in a district of Shinjuku.
In the second episode, which was released in 2002, this time we follow the character of Mizuki. Responsible for executing a yakuza leader, he is given priority by Shu, his old childhood friend. Shu finds Mizuki on their native island and becomes the godfathers of a school for orphans. But work is regaining its rights.
Finally, in the 3rd opus, the plot propels us to 2346. The new society in place, led by a crazy mayor, forces citizens to take a drug which makes them sterile. Despite everything, a group of resistance fighters seeks to overthrow the government.
AlloCiné spectators love this “extreme and stunning” trilogy, describing these films as “completely crazy”. “Dead or Alive is a totally offbeat thriller whose introductory scene and more particularly the final scene will remain in the memory of all spectators. It’s cult!”exults Carne.
Mad dog of Japanese cinema, Takashi Miike has dynamited the 7th Japanese art with this unbridled and totally crazy trilogy, happily freeing himself from the codes of the genre. Unpredictable and daring, the director navigates between genres in these 3 must-see films.
A prolific filmmaker
Very active and productive, Takeshi Miike alternates between television and cinema. It was in 2002, thanks to Audition, a bloody love story staged in 1999, that Takashi Miike achieved international recognition.
In 13 years, he wrote and directed more than 60 films. His cinema attracts more and more audiences and gets critics talking, particularly with its sensitive themes full of taboos such as the representation of sex and violence, as well as feelings that are both provocative and repressed in Visitor Q or Ichi the Killer (2001).
His mix of genres (crime, action, thriller, drama…), in each of his projects, gives his cinema a particularity and an unclassifiable genre. His latest feature film, First Love, was released in 2020 in France.
The story takes us to Tokyo at night. Leo, a young boxer, meets his “first love”, Monica, a drug addict callgirl. She is unwittingly involved in drug trafficking. All night long, a corrupt police officer, a yakuza, his sworn enemy and a killer sent by the Chinese triads, will pursue them.