Graine de Yakuza

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!