La Cité des âmes perdues

The extraordinary movies of the astonishingly prolific Takashi Miike take most viewers quite a bit getting used to, so if you've never seen one of his difficult to categorize films before you're in for a wild ride! His best known movie is probably the modern horror classic 'Audition'. An utterly brilliant movie to be sure, but not really all that representative of the rest of his high octane genre-busting output. Many of his fans regard 'Dead Or Alive' as one of his greatest works, and while I certainly agree it is one of the most extraordinary and original movies released in recent years, it was way too uneven for my liking and marred by one of the most ludicrous endings I've ever seen. 'City Of Lost Souls' is a much less bizarre and extreme experience than 'DOA'. It reaches neither the highs of that movie, nor the lows, and therefore is probably as good a place as any to get into Miike's world, which is quite unlike any other let me tell you! The plot itself is a fairly standard lovers on the run thing that we've seen in countless movies before ('Bonnie And Clyde', 'The Getaway', 'Badlands', 'Wild At Heart', 'True Romance',etc.etc.) but with Miike "plot" is basically just an excuse for messing with the audience's mind and expectations. The multi-racial nature of the cast and the seemingly random and sometimes confusing geographic settings help disorientate the viewer, which allows Miike to slip in some memorable set pieces and images. One in particular, the chicken fighting scene, had me literally speechless, and is one of the funniest and most unexpected sequences I've ever seen. But still, unlike 'DOA', Miike never goes too far into sheer silliness, and that makes 'City Of Lost Souls' are much more consistent and enjoyable experience for me. Maybe if I'd watched this movie first then worked my way up to 'DOA' my reaction to the latter would be more positive, who can say? I would definitely recommend Miike novices to watch this one first before they explore his more outrageous movies. Love him or hate him, you cannot ignore Takashi Miike, a film maker who makes overrated fanboy faves like David Fincher and Guy Ritchie look like the slow kids in the back of the class.

Contrary to some of the other imdb users' comments, CITY OF LOST SOULS is one of Takashi Miike's most entertaining films. While not possessing quite the same intensity or shock value of other Miike masterpieces like DEAD OR ALIVE, CITY...nevertheless is fastmoving, balances comic book tall tale surrealism expertly with plenty of violence, sick humor as well as the doomed love story -- what more could you ask? It is NOT the run of the mill generic, mediocre, forgettable action film that most great action film directors are turning out these days. And it involves you with the characters (a multi-ethnic melting pot -- which, as astounding as it may seem to some incredulous viewers, is what major Japanese urban centers are like in this day and age -- by the way, Brazil, home country of lead halfbreed character,Mario, has one of the largest Japanese immigrant populations in the world). If you enjoy Miike, don't miss this. It's his most romantic film (!) without sacrificing any of the blood, the dark, dark humor or bizarre imagery we've come to expect from this unpredictable genius.

What Takashi Miike is driven by is of course shock and irreverence. And He succeeded quite well here : lots of useless violence, lots of humor (the blood of the gunfighters drawing "love" on the ground), lots of bad taste. But "Audition" was characterized by the same ingredients. Not to be taken seriously of course. It's true that the codes of the genre are destroyed, played with : the hero is non-asian, the asians (all yakuza or triad members are worthless human beings driven by sadistic and violent impulses) And the end is a jewel in itself perverting the usual codes in the same way as the rest of the picture Great fun ! (another oddity : it must be the only Japanese picture in which half of the dialogue is in Portuguese...)

I enjoyed this movie, but I had hoped for more.

This is a straight forward story with lots of off the wall mini scenes/story's between the meat and potatoes of a very average revenge/gangster/drug tale.

The action sequences are pretty good to very good, and the gore level is not too bad(keep in mind this is Japanese in taste and style) Teah just does not make for a charismatic lead, but the rest of the cast were extremely watchable.

There is as always in these style of movies some light humour thrown it to lighten the violence.

This movie was good, but just not that satisfying or mindblowing...I recommend if you know the style and like the director.

What can I say... Takashi Miike is one whose movies I enjoy more and more these days and The City Of Lost Souls isn't an exception. The piece itself is about a Brazilian protagonist and his girlfriend, trying their best to cross the border from Japan to Taiwan. They stumble upon trouble on the way, interfering with Yakuza's business and the outcome becomes a quite fast-paced roller-coaster action with violence, punchlines, and, I must add that there's also a great load of comedy here.

Anyone expecting hardcore violence throughout the entire piece may get disappointed. If you got some distance though and are open for hybrid stuff then this piece won't disappoint you. It awesome and funny, with a great mixture between the raw and cold violent scenes and the funny, surprising scenes of comedy. The language mix between Brazilian Portugese, Mandarin and Japanese is just a great additional bonus.