Rainy Dog

Rainy Dog, part of Miike's Triad Society is a truly beautiful film. A lot of people are going to notice, and quite rightly, that it does not conform to the traditional Miike template. Instead it moves at a slow pace with long lingering shots of the rainy streets of Taipei. The action is restrained to only a few brief gun "battles" and a stabbing, but the film is not about violence. It is about the aftermath of violence. As one character says towards the end, it is about life, death and hate. There are no opportunities to glorify the violence and every murder carries with it intense and very real consequences.

The sound track flitters between Shinjuku Triad style electronic drum effects and keyboards and country style slide guitar which really hints at the films Western roots. Essentially it is a film about an outsider used to fending for himself who is forced to care about another person and in doing so realize the value of his own life. This is not a new format and is a storyline you can find in variation in many John Wayne movies, the difference here is that I bet you won't be expecting it in a film by the man who brought the world Fudoh or Ichi the Killer.

Before his turn in Dead or Alive, Sho Aikawa turns up here as ultra cool ex-Yakuza, Yuuji, who has retired to the back alleys of Taipei to earn money as a hit-man. Early on in the film a young child is left in his house by an unknown woman. At the heart of the film, and it is a genuine heart, is the relationship between Aikawa's character and his supposed son. Without wanting to give anything anyway, it is the developments between the two which make the final scene one of the most tense scenes I have seen in film for a long time. Rarely is an audience allowed to sympathies and care for characters in a film like Rainy Dog yet it is as if Miike deliberately wants to alter our expectations. It is through caring about the characters that you realize you want them to live happily ever after.

Tomorowo Taguchi, returning from his role as the psychotic Wang in Shinjuku Triad Society has a minor but important role in Rainy Dog. His obsessive pursuit of Sho Aikawa which we see has destroyed his life mirrors intelligently Aikawa's character who is also letting his obsessions drive him to ruin. Taguchi I consider to be one of the best Japanese actors in the last decade, he is certainly one of the most prolific, and here his meagre five or six scenes are infused with an energy which helps motivate the rest of the film. I am looking forward to the next film I see with him in.

I believe that Miike had to produce this film with a largely non-Japanese crew, it is a testament to his bravery as a film maker (I dare say few directors would risk such a venture) that Rainy Dog looks and feels as it does. There are a few moments when the sound does not quite match the action (check out Aikawa beating up Taguchi early in the film for some of the most bizarre punching sound effects) but the film as a whole does not suffer. I do not know whether it was a lack of Japanese crew and skills that led Miike to make a slower movie, if so, his ability to compensate is second-to none. Instead of trying to make viewers vomit (no sick bags dispensed at viewings of this film) Miike has done something that only Japanese directors seem willing to do (Takeshi Kitano or Takashi Ishii are prone to this) and that is to promote thought and feeling during a film that is essentially a "mobster" movie. There are few forgettable scenes and some are utterly heart wrenching (Aikawa sleeping indoors with a prostitute whilst his son sleeps under a blanket with a dog in the rain).

In honesty there is little I can say against Rainy Dog. It is a superb film, a moving film and one which will make you think long and hard. Above all else it will, like most Miike films, reinforce your sense of relief that somewhere there is someone with a brain making films with a brain. And a hell of a lot of style too.

One of the first Takashi Miike movies I ever saw was 'Dead Or Alive' and shocked me because it didn't play by "the rules", adding unexpected surreal touches to the violent yakuza thriller genre. I reacted very negatively to the movie at the time, but I subsequently grew to admire it the more I got into Miike's groove. Now that I'm familiar with Miike's more extreme movies like 'Ichi The Killer' and 'Visitor Q' I'm prepared for just about anything, but I was once again a bit nonplussed the first time I watched 'Rainy Dog'. Not because it was outrageous, but because it wasn't. 'Rainy Dog' is nothing like Miike's other early yakuza movies like 'Fudoh: The New Generation' and 'Full Metal Yazuza'. Anyone expecting the ultra-violent action and crazy humour of those two will be disappointed. Instead 'Rainy Dog' is a slow, atmospheric character study, very serious and dark in tone. Miike regular Sho Aikawa plays Yuuji a low level hit man exiled in Tawain. Yuuji is depressed from the relentless rain and becoming increasingly alienated. He sees no reason to his monotonous existence. One day a former lover (his wife?) turns up with a young boy (his child? It's not clear) who she dumps. Yuuji ignores the child who camps outside his flat and tags along on his hits. The boy seems to slowly humanize him, as does a prostitute he becomes involved with, but perhaps it is too late. Yuuji's life of violence is about to catch up with him. Miike makes great use of the rain soaked locations, and the movie is interesting for the fact that apart from Aikawa and another one of his regular actors Tomorowo Taguchi the cast is Tawainese and much of the dialogue is in Mandarin. The soundtrack regularly features a Ry Cooder-like slide guitar, and overall the movie has more in common with Takeshi Kitano's yakuza movies that Miike's. 'Rainy Dog' isn't one of Miike's most outrageous movies but it's still recommended and shows a more thoughtful side to this amazing director.

Director Takeshi Miike takes a break from his usual trademark ultra-violent comic book style action to bring us this slow paced, yet interesting drama, portraying an ex-Yakuza hit-man exiled to Taiwan for reasons unknown. The rain throughout the movie not only sets the mood but also symbolises the monotony of normal, everyday life felt by the protagonist as a contrast to his previous life as a Yakuza. Coming to terms with his new life, he does small time hits for a local gang and manages to maintain some stability and a sense of purpose in the otherwise meaningless existence of a hit-man. However, his world is turned upside down when a woman he doesn't remember leaves him with a child who is supposedly his. As he goes about his business of contract kills, his newly acquired 'son' follows him with fascination, observing and mentally clinging onto his alleged father in a cold, lonely and rainy city. Things get even more twisted when he befriends a prostitute and here starts the mingling of this unlikely trio, a subtle touch, typical of the twisted world of Miike. Overall, a heart warming yet poignant drama depicting the harshness of life, comparable to Luc Besson's Leon or Takeshi Kitano's Kikujiro no natsu.

Rainy Dog will no doubt come as a big surprise to many casual viewers of the work of Takashi Miike; featuring none of the over-the-top violence, sadism and hyper-kinetic surrealism of his more iconic pictures, such as Ichi the Killer, The Happiness of the Katakuris, Gozu and Dead or Alive.

Instead, Rainy Dog is an incredibly bleak, brooding, deliberately paced and entirely authentic gangster drama; focusing on the well-worn themes of love, life, family, responsibility, honour and retribution. The films tells the story of Yuuji; an exiled Japanese Yakuza living hand to mouth in a Taiwanese slum, trying to make ends meat by carrying out various hits for the local Triads so that he can afford to buy a fake passport to get him self back to Japan. If this wasn't difficult enough, his life is further complicated by the arrival of a small boy, who is literally dumped on Yuuji's doorstep and introduced as his son. This forces our central protagonist to think more specifically about his life and future; as his purgatory-like existence in this neon-lit jungle hell - plagued by constant rain and bursts of matter-of-fact violence - threatens a single fate of bloody retribution.

As the previous reviewer noted, the film is probably closer in tone to the work of someone like "Beat" Takeshi Kitano, with the deliberate pacing of the narrative and preoccupations with character and tone really carrying the film above the more dramatic moments of action. That said, the film is hardly an anomaly within Miike's rich back-catalogue of works; suggesting the quiet, almost serene moments of films like The Bird People in China, Ley Lines and indeed, the first hour of his masterpiece Audition.

It's wrong to think of Miike as a shallow provocateur; desperately trying to shock the viewer with more and more outlandish moments from film to film. Simply put; the man is a serious talent... as comfortable with straight crime dramas like Shinjuku Triad Society, Agitator and the film in question, as he is with more personal, idiosyncratic projects like Visitor Q, Gozu and The Happiness of the Katakuris. Rainy Dog might not be the film that I watch again and again - lacking the sheer audacity and room for multiple interpretations offered by the latter collection of films - but at the same time, it adds a great deal of depth to Miike's reputation as a highly skilled and highly talented filmmaker away from all the shock-value and occasional lapses of self-parody.

Rainy Dog is dark, moody, uncompromising film-noir at its finest; all wonderfully atmospheric, nicely shot and subtly acted (particularly by the three main leads who come to take on the personification of the "family" central to the thoughts and feelings of the main character). True, it may not be the greatest film that Miike has ever made, or indeed, one that is indicative of his trademark style, but it is, regardless, one that remains an enjoyable if somewhat slow-moving crime drama that shows Miike's capability of working with a variety of different acting styles (from child to adult, domestic to foreign, professional to amateur), whilst simultaneously placing further emphasis on the idea of character, rather than spectacle.

I've been a Miike fan for quite some time, and truly love his wild and crazy approach to film making. But this movie proves that he can also do serious films, and better than many serious directors. It is part 2 of his Triad society trilogy, and once again his themes of outsiders and innocence vs. violence is very obvious. The story is about a japanese hitman (beautifully down-played by Sho Aikawa) who has immigrated to taiwan. At the beginning a woman shows up at his doorstep and leaves a boy, whom she claims is his. The hitman doesn't really acknowledge the boy, and simply goes about his business (which mainly consists of killing people). But the boy follows him everywhere, and when the hitman later develops a sort of relationship with a prostitute, the three slowly grows closer, and become like a sort of family. The movie is very melancholic and has a tremendously moving atmosphere. It is completely rinsed of the usual Miike insanity and it actually works really well. It reminded me very much of Jarmusch, right down to the Neil Young-like slide guitar that makes up the soundtrack. If you've only seen his "crazy"-films you should really give this one a chance, since it really proves what an absolutely brilliant director this man is. "Rainy Dog" is with out doubt a masterpiece in modern cinema, and is even more impressive coming from the hands of the guy who brought us Ichi the Killer, Fudoh, Happiness of the Katakuris etc. etc. Takashi Miike continues to impress!

10/10