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If you thought when Sonny Corleone was "hit" it was over the top, after you see this movie, you will realize that the GodFather barely scraped the bottom. This movie pumps you up then pumps you full of lead. If transvestite "lesbian" schoolgirl assassins that use their "nether regions" to blow your brains out (you gotta see this to believe it!) are not the kick in the head needed to grab the attention of even the most jaded fans of crime movies, there is more than enough "conventional" violence for the traditionalists.

If this movie doesn't get your heart started, you had better take your seeing eye dog to the vet!

Wow! This is movie making.

I haven't seen this director's work before. This is my initiation. He sure works with a heavy hand. No subtlety here. Heads roll and blood splatters frequently and often at the hands of small children. Decapitation is particularly repulsive. It's gang warfare and anything goes. It's an eye for an eye. Rural gangs run riot in Kyushu and Kobe plotting to gain control of the illicit drug trade and urging North Korea to involve itself in war with America. It's all about human beings with the worst intentions.

You might call some night club scenes almost comic releief except for the fact that the women entertainers who shoot metal darts from their genital area are amazingly accurate and a man's brains can be seen hanging on a dart after it penetrates his head. Both shocking and tasteless. An hermaphrodite reveals "her" bulge to a surprised woman and then has sex with her. At least this kind of sex is something original. I suppose originality is this director's strongest point and his actors do a great job in all scenes which are literally over the top.

The young Riki Fudoh is particularly charismatic in his mission to curtail his father's cruel and murderous activity.

If savage assassinations with copious blood are what you like this violent film will probably satisfy you although you may not sleep well afterward. On the other hand the killing scenes are so exaggerated and so over the top one might find them almost laughable. I imagine the actors had an hilarious time with the filming of Fudoh.

Now that I am initiated...is it my kind of film? No sir, not for me!

For the most part Takeshi Miike's movies have been getting weirder and weirder, so if you've already experienced the likes of 'Ichi The Killer' and 'Visitor Q' his earlier movies (e.g. 'Rainy Dog') might seem a bit tame and too "normal". Not so 'Fudoh: The New Generation'! Eight years old, which is a lifetime in Miike's world (60 movies since 1991!), it's still as outrageous as ever. This was the movie that started Miike's reputation as being one of the most wildest and inventive directors in the world. The bare bones of the plot makes it sound like countless other yakuza movies, but Miike continually shocks and subverts his audience. This is one movie you just have to see to believe! Shosuke Tanihara plays Riki Fudoh, teenage son of crime boss Iwao Fudoh (Tôru Minegishi). Fudoh senior sacrificed Riki's older brother Ryu when Riki was a child. Now that Riki is older he plans an audacious plan of revenge, using his own gang of child assassins and sexy schoolgirls, one of whom dispatches her victims via a blow gun she fires from her vagina. 'Fudoh' will have you giggling insanely throughout. Just how does Miike get away with it?! It's also one of the most entertaining and exciting action movies I've ever seen, up there with Miller's 'Mad Max 2', Hill's 'The Driver', Peckinpah's 'The Getaway', Rodriguez's 'El Mariachi' and Ishii's 'The Black Angel'. Most Hollywood action movies these days send me to sleep. I tried watching 'The Fast And The Furious' the other night for example and gave up after becoming bored to tears. Tarantino's mind blowing 'Kill Bill: Vol 1' is the one recent notable exception. Is it any wonder that it was heavily inspired by asian cinema both old and new, including the work of Takashi Miike? I think not. If you enjoyed 'Kill Bill: Vol 1' check out Miike's 'Fudoh' and 'Ichi' and 'Dead Or Alive' trilogy, and Kinji Fukasaku's amazing 'Battle Royale', and you'll immediately see the energy and black humour that Tarantino is currently drawing upon. 'Fudoh: The New Generation' is an instant classic. Fans of action, crime, or exploitation movies will eat it up!

FUDOH: THE NEW GENERATION is probably the best starting point if someone wants to study the new wave of cinema coming out of Japan. While not as good as RING or as thought provoking as AUDITION or the films of "Beat" Takeshi, FUDOH will best prepare you for the extreme limits of violence and taste common to Japanese cinema. (The Japanese perspective on sex and violence is a mix of Paul Verhoeven and the Farrelly Brothers.)

FUDOH's sex and violence isn't in unwatchably bad taste. I'd say it's right on the line.

In the film, a Yukaza father with two sons messes up and must pay a tribute to show loyalty to the other Yakuza families. He does this by killing his oldest son (in a prologue that had me so confused I had to read the video box to follow what was happening.) Ten years later, the youngest son (now the smartest and most popular kid in high school) organizes his friends to take revenge against his father and all the other Yakuza leaders for practicing outdated customs that condone killing one's own family members.

Like most Japanese films, FUDOH works on two levels. On the surface, it's a violent revenge picture (and this one moves faster than most Japanese films.) The film is also a commentary on the relationships between fathers and sons (while enemies the two show more in common then they'd ever admit), young and old, and the need to question tradition and keep things current.

Of course most people will walk away from FUDOH talking about the wild sequences of sex and violence. This is the film by Miike Takashi (DEAD OR ALIVE, AUDITION) that put him on the map. (It also got him labeled the Japanese Verhoeven.) Typical of the director's work, FUDOH would most definitely be 'NC-17', with scenes of six-year-olds performing assassinations and a stripper who shoots poison darts from her.you know where. (You have to see it to believe it, and the fact that Takeshi is able to show it without explicit nudity - the girl uses a blowgun-like tube - proves that he does have a threshold of taste.)

I enjoyed large chunks of FUDOH. It's far superior to the better known DEAD OR ALIVE and more entertaining than AUDITION, although it's nowhere near as mature or thought provoking. It's also worth noting that this film is very Japanese in its behind-the-times attitudes towards females. The sexism is a bit surprising coming from Takashi, since AUDITION (which the director made five years later) is one of the strongest cinematic arguments for a woman's sexual equality that Japan's ever produced.

Fudoh - The New Generation has the Reputation to be one of the best Takashi Miike Films, he is very Hit and Miss with his Films. However Fudoh has a Violent and Action packed Start, some really crazy and bizarre Ideas, but after the Stylish Action Packed Start the Film turn down the pacing a bit ,would this Film have a bit more Action It would be a much more great Cult Film. Lets talk about the characters which a really Interesting with the Fudoh Family and the Second Villain Daigen Nohma played by Riki Takeuchi he is one of the Best Things about this Film even though he has only around 10 Minutes Screentime. He steals every Scene in this Film and has a Big Charisma and badassness , I wonder why Riki Takeuchi was never more of a Big Deal he would be perfect in a Tarantino Film.

Fudoh - The New Generation is surely one of the Best Miike Films (along with Audition, Ichii-The Killer and Lesson of the evil) a stylish well filmed Yakuza-Action-Thriller with some Violence and Gore.

Fed up with the mainstream, uninspired Hollywood action movies? Hey, I don't blame you… Therefore, I strongly suggest turning your head towards the Asian film industry and search for Takashi Miike in particular. Miike is a very busy and ambitious movie-freak who already surprised the world with a couple of ultra-violent (on the edge of ‘sick') and hard-boiled thrillers, such as the ‘Dead or Alive'-series, Itchi the Killer and Visitor Q. But this film – Fudô – remains his very best achievement in my opinion. Simply put, Fudô is action from start to finish…stuffed with dared ideas, taboos and some of the darkest humor you'll ever see. It's about a young and good-looking boy who single-handedly wipes out the top of the Japanese drugs-mafia. With a little help from his classmates and a wide imagination, he avenges his brother's dead. A strong stomach and an eccentric sense of humor are required when watching Miike's film…bullets; blood and chopped-off heads are flying around constantly. The film's high tempo lowers a bit during the second half, as the story becomes slightly more sentimental and moralistic…but even then there's a lot of absurdity and joy to discover. Like the most bizarre sex scene ever, for example!

Miike doesn't seem to care about all the social values and that's his strongest power. I'm sure that, if someone would release a film like this in my country, there'd be tons of angry parents and worried sociologists complaining because of the involvement of children in Fudô. It just isn't ‘politically correct' to portray 8-year-olds with firearms but THAT is what makes Miike's film so unique. If you're not too easily shocked, you should check this film out. It's Miike's best since I wasn't that much a fan of his manga-playground ‘Itchi'.

Now…anyone up for a game of vagina-darts???

Fudoh: The New Generation was Takashi Miike's first cross-over success in the West (whether in America or just on the festival circuit I can't say), and it's no wonder- it's the perfect calling card, a work of ferocious energy and sincerity with comedy and drama, extreme violence and heart, kitsch and the bizarre. A lot of things that one would expect to find in the given Miike yakuza can be found here in spades: a blood battle involving brothers, the corrupt old incumbent yakuza, the vicious and surreal thugs out to get their just deserts, and of course in style with carefully composed shots and startlingly edited scenes of action, with deliberate scenes of dialog and actors staring at one another. It shouldn't work, but it does, and to a point that had me laughing, gasping, and sure that even if things worked out "alright" (and alright in the sense of a bloody tale of twisted revenge) it would leave a lasting impression, long after seeing nearly a couple dozen other Miike films.

It's emotional core, for one thing, is exceptional for a Miike film, which helps in springing out the demented comedy, as unlikely as that is. A yakuza kills one of his sons to pay a debt to a gangster- a debt which he crazily relishes as he plants his son's head on the table and laughs maniacally- leaving the living son completely bewildered but swearing on his late brother's honor. Cut to ten years later, as the father barely acknowledges he ever had another son, and Riki Fudoh is now gathering up a small army of outcast teens like him (one girl who can shoot out darts from her privates, little kids with handguns, a big huge lummox who killed his parents, and a hermaphrodite, cause, why the hell not) to get payback by killing off as many yakuza as possible. Crazy? It just might work, after the vicious, grotesque deaths of four council members (the car scene especially is vintage Miike).

You don't have to be completely queued to the artistic aesthetic Miike had with Gozu, or always have a smile on your face ala Katakuris, but Fudoh marks its place in the upper-level of the director's oeuvre by allowing for the low-budget cast to shine through. This goes for scenes that could, by any other director, be deemed unnecessary or even just cruel (i.e. the death of one of the girls by the hands of the North Korean killer Fudoh Sr hires to kill his son, and the hermaphrodite sex scene). In Miike's hands, he treats them like it SHOULD be considered art, not simply exploitation of genre or going for dopey extremes with exit wounds and vaginas. And it is, for those who want it, a success as a comedy, one that allows you to laugh your head off at the kinds of things that would give the squeamish nightmares for weeks. And for those looking for a work that goes even further than Hamlet, here it is!

And, of course, where would a great Miike flick be without a sneering Riki Takeuchi? It's a lot of fun and a truly substantial dramatic effort too, and it's not a bad place to go if you're just getting into the director's elephantine body of very contemporary work.

10 years after Fudoh senior has to kill one of his sons after his disrespects the Yakuza, his other son plots to avenge his brother.He organizes his own band of teenage killers to topple his father's organization. Filled to the brim with Takashi Miike's now trademark bizarre characters and over-the-top violence, this is a fun little flick, if a tad repetitive in parts. Not among Miike's best, but certainly up there. It was followed by two straight to video sequels neither of which had Miike's involvement and are worse off because of it.

Eye Candy:Both Marie Jinno and Miho Nomoto shows tits and ass

My Grade: B-

DVD Extras: I didn't get the recent special edition so, just Trailers for "Wild Criminal", "Score", and "Blood". Not even a menu screen

Fudoh: The New Generation (1996) is Takashi Miike's film which introduced him to the Western audiences and film critics for the first time. After that, he's made many more films which have been shown on festivals and film clubs around the world. Fudoh is alongside Audition (1999) his masterpiece of his films that I've seen. Fudoh tells the story of young boy, Riki Fudoh, who one night sees how his father, a powerful Yakuza gangster, kills his own son, Riki's brother due to some Yakuza "ritual" as the father has to sacrifice something for the crimes he's made to the Yakuza. The Yakuza says that he can get away with the case by chopping his own arm off, but instead he wants to kill his son and bring his head to satisfy the Yakuza. From that day on, Riki seeks revenge for his father without showing it. He becomes the most intelligent student in his school and he forms his own criminal society to fight the old generation Yakuza with the help of some school friends. They include a huge long haired caricature of high school student who crushes everything under him, two cute Japanese girls, which both have some very nasty habits and "tools" and two 6-7 year old boys who commit the assassinations for Riki. Yes, the sentence you just read is true and this is a film by Takashi Miike.

I just love this film in its originality and seriousness. The film is completely over-the-top in some places without ever becoming too gratuitous or (un)intentionally funny, unless Miike wants so. He has the ability to use such symbolism (the ending of Dead or Alive (2000) etc.) that this ability alone would make him a very interesting film maker. Fudoh is a film about same themes as Dead or Alive as they both handle the subject matter of relationships between two men, who cannot quit or change their lethal attitudes and who are enemies but share many similar things. Even more, this film (and Dead or Alive, too) is about human psyche and about the line which appears on the screen at the beginning of the film, before the credits. Human is far more dangerous a beast than any beast we've known from the nature. The ending in Fudoh is very impressive, sudden and great and underlines the message and theme of the film as effectively as the mentioned opening line. This film is about us, but told in the form of a Yakuza drama, as Miike himself is a Japanese and thus Yakuza interests him as a subject matter in his films. Also, the film is about relationships (often gay oriented) between the Yakuza bosses and also relations between fathers and sons, and especially what kinds of things are expected from fathers once they make children. One very unborn "child" is spattered on the face of the huge long haired guy, and maybe that unborn human creature was happier not having to born in this world in the first place? Miike shows and asks us, and those who can or want, try to answer and think about the things in his films. I simply can't imagine a Takashi Miike film being empty in content.

Cinematically this film is very restrained, just like Dead or Alive's middle part after the explosive beginning and the surrealistically wild finale. There are some great images in Fudoh, like the one in which Riki "gets older" after witnessing the brutal murder of the brother, and there's also some beautiful and mythic lights visible, coming from windows etc. and all these things say much more than words ever could, especially when in most cases these lights appear soon after someone's been killed. Fudoh is almost as peaceful as Audition and it is great how the director changes the tones of his films from extremely calm and restrained, to more than wild and explosive. Audition is never wild or explosive, but Fudoh and Dead or Alive sure are. Takashi Miike's ability to handle his films so perfectly is among the things which make his films so unique and fantastic.

The characters in Fudoh are very personal and memorable. The criminals are evil and Riki's partners are crazy, but in a restrained way. The mentioned huge guy has to be seen to be believed, and also one dart wielding female assassin of Riki's is very unbelievable. Some of the violent scenes are very gory, like the poisoning of one Yakuza, which really is effective and grotesque to say the least! The assassinations are brutal and gory, but it all symbolizes the decay of the world as even little children are trained to kill and very effectively, too. None of the violence is exploitative, but some viewers may consider it too graphic and off-putting, but that is always the case with personal, unlimited and symbolic cinema.

Fudoh is very wonderful modern Japanese film and on the same level with the work of Takeshi Kitano, even though these are very different film makers. Equally brilliant and personal, but different in style and elements. Fudoh is Miike's masterpiece and I hope he has many more masterpieces to offer in his career. He has made so much films in such a short time, and all of those which I've managed to see are at least interesting and personal, if not quite masterpieces. Fudoh is among the 10/10 experiences.

I've mentioned in some of my other reviews ('Ezo Ezo Azaraku II' and 'Mr Vampire') that SBS (a free-to-air Australian channel specializing foreign programs) shows some pretty cool and pretty weird. That being said, I watched this not knowing who Takashi Miike was, and ignoring SBS's usual "warning: this program contains material that may disturb some viewers". That was quite the understatement. I reckon 'Fudoh' could disturb most viewers.

When Riki Fudoh (Shosuke Tanihara) was a child, he witnessed his father Iwao Fudoh, a yakuza boss, behead Riki's older brother, Ryu. Ryu has committed crimes against the Yakuza and dishonoured his father, and in such a society, it is Iwao's duty to kill him, regardless of Ryu being his first son. Naturally, this has an impact on Riki. Skip to Riki in high-school, and he is now the boss of his own Yakuza gang, with the intent of taking out the older generation of Yakuza, and destroying the old ways. Only in Japan...

'Fudoh' plays out as quite the violent yakuza drama. It may not have the body-count of a John Woo or Quentin Tarantino movie, but the "controversial violence" of Tarantino's 'Kill Bill' has nothing on this, and I'd be willing that Woo would much prefer to avoid making anything like this. Riki's yakuza gang is made of up teenagers and kids. Very early into the movie, we see some kids (I dare say no older than 8 at the most) pull out their hand-guns and assassinate a rival Yakuza. That I could barely handle, but Miike just goes further and further with some rather unusual acts of violence and very bizarre sex-scenes.

And even through all that, there is still a plot. 'Fudoh' explores the same theme as 'Battle Royale' - the younger generation of Japanese not understanding, or not willing to understand, the long-lasting feudal traditions in Japanese culture. OK, I'll admit that is how I understood it. Maybe I got it wrong, maybe I was just looking for something that wasn't there, but I'm fairly sure that my interpretation is at least somewhat correct. It is easy to overwhelmed by the action on-screen, and I wouldn't be surprised if some people completely missed any theme and left only with the image of someone's brain stuck to a wall.

'Fudoh' is a good movie, but not for the faint of heart. Or most people. In fact, it may be best if only shown to fans of the more violent action movies from Asia - 9/10

Director Takashi Miike ("Audition", "Dead or Alive I+II") created a dark vengeance-story that deals with a young guy named Riki Fudoh who takes bitter revenge on the Yakuza for killing his brother. Together with some classmates he starts a merciless crusade against the organized crime... However, without being too sensitive, so faint-hearted persons should stay away from the gross scenes of murder! Acid drinks, beheadings and little kids as contract killers... no doubt, "Fudoh" is bloody entertainment in perfection! It is something like teenagers on a killing spree, but fortunately far beyond political correctness and typical Hollywood-clichés - or could anyone imagine Denise Richards using vaginal firearms?!? (A delicious imagination, by the way...)... Miike´s film ran very successfully at various festivals like in Rotterdam/Netherlands, Toronto/Canada or in Germany. It was a No.1 box-office blockbuster in its home country Japan and everyone who likes violent Asian action movies should give it a fair chance! Recommended!

Another knock-out by Takashi Miike!!! This one is a doozy... Pre-teen assassins, a chick that can shoot darts out of her p***y, hermaphrodite hit men (hitwomen?), and more bullets and blood than you can shake a samurai sword at. FUDOH is action packed and grabs you from the very first scene. If you are into extreme Asian action, then this should be right up your alley. If your idea of extreme action is Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Segal, then you have no idea what you're in for. If you haven't already, also check out ICHI THE KILLER - another Miike masterpiece, both are incredible. I really can't say which film I like better. - Highly recommended 9 1/2 out of 10.

And I'm not blown away easily.

Plot: Yakuza boss kills his older son to settle some gang matters. Younger son witnesses the deed, and swears revenge. After the son has built his own criminal network in school (recruiting his fellow students), he starts to extract revenge upon the yakuza, his father, and the older generation in general. Then it gets quite bloody. I mean, more so.

This movie is rather full of violence. And nudity. And stuff I probably can't mention without being censored :-) People of the "decent citizen" variety may get heart attacks.

The movie feels like a japanese manga strip turned to real live. A lot of typical elements are readily found: the cool high school crimelord, his deadly girl-henchmen in school uniforms, the bully kid that's twice as big as any teacher, little gadgets that came straight from James Bond, etc. Add to that a hefty dose of how some japanese seem to view that whole "respect your elders" stuff, and you get a hugely entertaining ride into the japanese subconsciousness. Or something like that, anyway.

After being blown away by Audition I thought I'd better get more acquainted with Miike. After reading reviews and reader comments I decided to go back a little and start with Fudoh. In short, I can't believe this movie was made by the same director as Audition. There's no need to go into details of the film really given all the other reviews, just suffice it to say, if you're expecting Audition quality material, forget it. If you're looking for the Japanese equivalent of a straight to video b-movie action pic, with a script that occasionally flirts with intelligence, you might like it. I didn't.

4 of 10

I prefer "Fudoh" to every Miike-film I've seen yet. Yes, also to "Audition". I think "Fudoh" is Miike's most energetic film. It has Miike's visual trademarks as well as his surreal sense of humor and his outrageous violence. Style-wise, it's comparable to "Dead or Alive" or "City of Lost Souls", but "Fudoh"'s plot works far better. It's a simple story but very dynamic, told in fantastic images, bold scenes, lots of violence and cool acting.

The main actor is not only tough, he's also strangely androgynous. He leads a group of gangsters which consists only of children and teenagers. Well that's already very subversive. One of the most evil scenes in the film involves two boys shooting at a gangster. He survives and the kids don't have any bullets left. With innocent eyes, they hand him their sandwiches... cut. Next scene: Two small bodies in trash bags. Miike's an evil b****rd.

I highly recommend "Fudoh" for those with a strong stomach and a flair for visual storytelling. If you want to go from "Audition" to the more entertainment-oriented Miike, "Fudoh" or "Dead or Alive" make a good entry. At least a better entry than the 200% sick "Visitor Q"...

Rating 8/10

as a fan of japan extreme cinema Takashi Miike is one of my favorite director in the world.After seeing his morden stuff like Audition,Ichi the killer,13 assassins i really curious to watch his older stuff and Fudoh:the new generation came to my mind and i have to say:Oh boy what a movie.The movie is about a young boy named Riki after witnessing his father kill his older brother grew up become a young yakuza boss and set up a plan to eliminated all the people who involved in his brother death in a very crude and brutal.Apart from the ultra violent and how over the top this movie is i find the crime drama very interesting and it makes you go from a surprise to another surprise in a very twisted way.The music composed by Chu Ishikawa whom you may know for the Tetsuo the iron man soundtrack is awesome as always but the problem of this movie is it end with a cliffhanger and i really want to know what happen next but to bad the sequels never been made

Fudoh: The Next Generation is another in a long line of Yakuza films helmed by Takashi Miike. The big difference here is that the principal Yakuza organisation in the film is made up of adolescents and 5-7 year old boys who are just as deadly as their adult rivals.

The reigning Nio Yakuza clan is made up of five different families, one of the five heads is Iwao Fudoh, and his first lieutenant his oldest son, Ryu. When Ryu orders one of the rival Yasha organisations hit men killed, thus triggering a full scale war between the Yasha and Nio clans, Iwao is asked to make up for his sons mistake and he does so by decapitating him and presenting the head as compensation to the Nio clan.

Upon hearing a noise Iwao's youngest son Riki, awakes and goes to investigate - he stumbles upon the grisly sight of his father beheading his older brother. Cut to ten years later, Riki is now in high school and running an organisation of his own made up of fellow students and a group of little boys. His anger over the death of his brother has not faded in the least and he has plans to wipe out the other four families in the Nio clan and become boss.

Fudoh is really a mindblowing spectacle, we are constantly battered with violent and non-PC imagery, beginning with the sight of two five year-old boys coldly assassinating an elderly Yakuza boss. To see young children effortlessly handling 9mm's is somewhat of a shock to our pre-conditioned minds to start with, but when they continue on to calmly blow an old man's brains out you start to get an idea of what is ahead.

The next slaying involves a poisoned cup of coffee and literally bucketloads of blood. Another features Riki's female friend and classmate Mika, who works on the side at a sleazy strip joint performing her unique act which consists of shooting sharpened darts out of a blowpipe inserted in her vagina and bursting balloons on the other side of the room, though this night, in-between balloons, she shoots a dart right through a Nio leaders head - in one ear and out the other - the dart sinks into the wall with a piece of brain tissue still attached.

Everything about Fudoh is so over-the-top and insanely exaggerated that you seem not to notice that the likelihood of a group of children being at war with the Yakuza is highly improbable. Midway through the film we are shown the children's training camp where we see the kids merrily playing soccer with their English teachers head, this serves again to reinforce the sense of unreality that's at play here. Although, all hyperbole aside, Fudoh also explores the dysfunctional relationship between father and son, a bond so broken down by betrayal and murder that as the two males sit opposite each other eating dinner in silence, each one is plotting a way to execute the other.

All in all, if you dig schoolgirl hermaphrodites, friendly giants, lesbian English teachers, vaginal darts and a large helping of blood and black comedy, this a must-see Miike film.

Not my cup of tea.

Miike seems to have a cult following of desensitized, budding little sociopaths that hyena bark themselves silly anytime he shows people crapping on camera or a killer vagina.

Miike seems to be a director for a generation raised on Fear Factor, for a generation raised on the idea that the suffering and humiliation of others and themselves, the defilement of themselves, makes for good entertainment.

He's a director for a soulless generation that thinks SIN CITY or BORN NATURAL KILLERS or SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE are great moves.

I don't quite fall in that category, so I can only review his films... as films. Based on an archaic morality, based on an absurd idea, that a movie at its worst... should be unpleasant to lead us to some worthy conclusion, not be unpleasant for its own sake.

In Fudoh, it's all sensationalism.

But sensationalism devoid of a story or characters you care the least amount about, sensationalism devoid of any real center or real sense of concern for the people who dance on the screen in front of you... sensationalism for its own sake is pornography in the real sense of that word.

I've got no problem with adults being adults, with sex, or naked people, I'm no type of prude, (heck I'm a huge fan of films from CASABLANCA to DEVIL AND MRS. JONES to John Woo's THE KILLERS) but I have a problem with films that dehumanize us, and desensitize us, that have no joy in them, that feed are baser serial-killer want-to-be instincts without any thought to our higher ones.

And Fudoh (and Dead Alive, a movie that I found even more of a waste of film) is such a movie. About young gangsters and vengeance ostensibly. But its really just a loose excuse to string together a string of shock and gore.

I bought Fudoh (I can buy for the price of renting usually)based on reviews posted here, and promptly sold Fudoh.

Not my cup of tea.

Gokudo Sengokushi: Fudo/Fudoh:The New Generation(1996) contains over the top action that makes Hollywood action pretty mild. The action is done in graphic novel form. Some of the best action scenes take placer during the middle portion. Action takes second fiddle to drama in the final act. Outdoes many Heroic Bloodshed films in gore department.

The set pieces are imaginatively violent. One bizarre set piece is the scene where a Yakuza boss is killed when a female assassin shoots an arrow from her groan through his head. Another outrageous set piece involves lethal coffee. The murders of the Yakuza bosses in an office is filmed in style. Finally, the confrontation between father and son in the climax is suspenseful and tense.

It deals in symbolic terms with the relationship between father and son in Japanese culture. Film questions the ideas of elders as being rotten. Fudoh:The New Generation(1996) goes against the ideas set by elders in Japan. The father and son relationship is represenative of the battle between the old and young for control and power. Takes the stance that things need to be in constant change for things to stay in a staleless manner.

The direction by Takashi Miike is superb in his handling of the film. He directs the action scenes in a manic and weird style. The visuals for Fudoh:The New Generation(1996) are outstanding. The best crime film to come out of Japan since Sonatine(1993). Persists of black humor that reminds me of the film making of Seijun Suzuki.

A fast paced and ferociously violent film. Its the exact opposite of a Takeshi Kitano movie. This is because the former goes for action while the latter goes for character and violent realism. Also, Kitano's films focuses on the dullness of life within his characters. The violence in this film is in the manner of Lone Wolf & Cub, John Woo, and Lucio Fulci.

Manages to break some taboos with many scenes. One such taboo is the image of a young boy shooting a Yakuza boss with a gun. These types of scenes would never be seen in a Hollywood film. The movie takes a couragous stand by showing this and other things like the love making scene between a transsexual and a former Yakuza assassin turned female teacher. Fudoh:The New Generation pushes the envelop to the point of ripping it to sheds.

With Fudo, emerged a promising new director by the name of Takashi Miike. He has so far specialized in Yakuza pictures and dark comedies. One of the best of the new century in Japanese cinema. Takashi Miike does not receive the same kind of attention given to Takeshi Kitano. He is every bit as good and talented as Takeshi Kitano.

Heavierly influenced by the Triad pictures, Fudoh upps the ante on cinematic violence. This is not a high body count feature like A Better Tomorrow 2(1987), Tragic Hero(1987), or The Killer(1989). Uses the spare violence to a great effect. Enters the same kind of themes as the Triad pics in Hong Kong. Fudoh inherits the dazzling visuals and bloody shootouts of the Heroic Bloodshed movies.

Fudoh:The New Generation(1996) and Ringo Lam's Full Contact(1992) have a few things in common. First, both contain over the top violence. Also, both deal with the themes of betrayal and revenge. Third, Fudoh(1996) and Full Contact(1992) use some dazzling film techniques. Finally, the two features are punkish in their manner and style.

Takes a nihilistic view point about the youth of Japanese culture. The film ends in uncertainty. The character Riki Fudoh is a nihilist because he believes in the new replacing the old by way of destruction of existing values in place of future values. Shosuke Tanihara is charismatic as the cold and vengeful Riki Fudoh. Toru Minegishi plays Iwao, Riki's father as a man who would do anything to save his own skin including killing his own children.

Fudoh has a lot of spectacular visual effects, an unbelievable speed an almost surreal violence. All this makes Fudoh to an unforgettable event for everyone who sees it. It is a stylish, dark fantasy for adults and the story is full of unexpected twists and unbelieveable turns of events. But be careful: You can only love this movie, if you are very common with senseless, excessive violence !!! Surely one of the best Japanese movies ever to be made !!!