La Loi de la rue

It is clear from this film that director Miike was ready for the 'big time' and indeed moved from this accomplished work to the celebrated Audition, shown all over the world. Ley Lines is a fast moving madhouse of small time crooks, the homeless and the wannabe youngsters. Presumably filming on the go we are in and out of not only alleys and back streets but main streets too with (if you look) slightly bewildered passers by caught in the camera cross fire. Hectic pace, well drawn characters, a simple enough story and lots of wrong doings having to be avenged. Nothing sounds new about this and yet such is the command Miike has of the action that we are swept along as if part of the goings on ourselves. Bright, colourful, thoughtful, almost romantic, with a hint of sentiment and funny.

This was a much more character-driven storyline than one might expect from Miike, and very nicely done, although it doesn't exactly score huge points for originality. We have the hooker with the heart of gold, and the usual tale of three disaffected youths trying to better their lot in life, only to fall into a life of crime that leads to disaster. But all of the characters are still sympathetic, and Miike's way of framing his story against the real sense of disconnection that his Chinese characters feel living in Japan is effective (even if American viewers might only pick it out after having a critic more savvy in Asian societal dynamics explain it first). This is also the most gorgeously shot Miike film I think I've seen, rich with deeply saturated and highly stylized colors. 8/10 from me.

It's strange: while I would probably much rather watch one of the more insane and, by virtue of reputation, more popular works repeatedly from Takashi Miike like Ichi the Killer or Visitor Q, a film like Ley Lines or Graveyard of Honor are probably technically better made "films", and is a wonderful but harsh reminder of how dedicated an artist Miike can be with the right material. Ley Lines is dark and depressing and about alienation and filmed often with a detached and unflinching eye on the plight of its young Chinese outsiders. It's also at times, not too unusually for Miike, strange and random and violent and with bits of deranged sex (here, as in other Japanese films, blurred out amusingly with blue lightning). I knew watching it I should've found some of the choices Miike made almost too detached or too pretentious or too stark with its depiction of some kind of reality. But by the end, I didn't care, in a sense.

That sense really has to do with connection with the bulk of the director's stylistic choices and the characters who with only a little development appear fully realized (or at least sympathetic as the lost and tortured souls of this story). It's about three Chinese guys who leave their blasé suburban lives and go to Tokyo, where they're soon robbed blind by a prostitute. Ironically, and in what is at first irony and then becomes a minor tragedy, the prostitute's Chinese currency doesn't fare at all with her nasty pimp and her other call duties are ugly at best and revolting (or just plain twisted underground crap) at worst, and she ends up back with them by an odd twist of fate. The Chinese youths go through some unsuccessful motions, like selling an ether-esquire drug, before one decides that it's time to leave this dreadful Tokyo landscape: Brazil. A heist is plotted, and executed, but with (somewhat) typical fatalistic results.

Miike seems to be experimenting, but at times in subtle gestures with the camera and lighting that suggest perhaps his own questioning of himself and his skills as opposed to just what the script requires. It's an exhilarating mix-and-match; early on we get that rushing bravura of the variety where we get put into the rush and vibrancy of youth with the camera tracking unevenly along as they ride bikes or gliding in a long take across the train station into the train car. Then, in Tokyo, sometimes a shot will just last a while on something and Miike won't cut if something violent or action-like is happening right in the next room (in these instances the cut-away to a close-up, or the emphasis on leaving a spot, becomes paramount). And last by not least Miike tries a red filter in the bulk of the frame, adding some crazy but always interesting effect to scenes like the one kid running through the streets to get back to his friend whom somehow he knows is beat up, or in the scenes towards the end (not to mention that very random but affecting moments with that man in the underground room requesting stories from Shanghai girls- very specifically those girls- and a fish somehow makes its way into the inter-cutting of a story).

On top of this, Miike's actors, most of whom I've never seen much of before with only one (Shoi Aikawa) I can recognize immediately, are all top shelf talents seemingly without doing much most of the time. It's after the heist, of course, that their chops are tested even more, and it's hard not to get caught up emotionally or feel frazzled as the one kid goes on about childhood memories and his mother in the back of the car. Somehow against all of the possible pit-falls of being ironically showy with his attempts at depicting these alienated people and the dregs of society (the real criminals here are go-for-broke evil people, including an oddball African) Miike makes the themes and ideas stand out excellently. In the 'art-film' sensibility, in fact, his compositions are incredible, and his control of fluctuating mood matches that of something out of the French new-wave, comparisons to Bande a part not-withstanding.

So, in short, don't watch it if you're expecting a Dead-or-Alive or a Gozu. This is serious film-making about tragic and lost souls, with only some (chilling) slices of the wild-man Japanese director we all know and love in some circles.

Ley Lines (the English title of Japan Triad Society) is the third part of Miike's Triad Society Trilogy but it (and the other parts) can be seen out of order as they contain no recurring characters or storylines. A funny, sad film about bored small town delinquents travelling to Tokyo and being outclassed by the big city criminals. Beautiful camerawork.

A trio of Japanese youths of Chinese descent escape their semi-rural upbringing and relocate to Shinjuku, a special ward in Tokyo, where they befriend a troubled Shanghai prostitute and fall foul of a local crime syndicate.

Like many of Miike's works, including the two previous "Black Society Trilogy" entries, the film examines the underbelly of respectable Japanese society and the problems of assimilation faced by non-ethnically Japanese people in Japan. Although it may not be easy for some Western (American) audiences to understand, the diversity between Chinese and Japanese cultures is great, and not always compatible.

What is interesting about this film, as opposed to the first two in the trilogy, is the relatively low level that these criminals are involved in. Rather than top-notch assassins or anything so glamorous, the story involves the dealing of toluene. For those who do not know, toluene is essentially paint thinner. So these "drug dealers" are little more than pushers of chemicals that anyone could inhale (for free) at any time, if they were so desperate for a high.

This film is noted as the "most accomplished" of the trilogy, and indeed it does seem to have the most polish. Maybe not as well-paced as "Rainy Dog" or with the impressive music of "Shinjuku Triad Society". but definitely a film with apparently higher production values. Perhaps not surprisingly, "Ley Lines" was Miike's final film before breaking into international stardom with "Audition" (1999).

As with the other two films of the trilogy, Arrow Video has Tom Mes providing a feature-length audio commentary. It is not as informative as it could be, with Mes often commenting on the plot (which should be self-evident). Those really interested in Mes' thoughts should seek out his book "Agitator", now available in a second edition. This disc does have a few bonus features, as well, that help us get inside the head of prolific filmmaker Miike. We have new interviews with Miike himself, as well as with actor Show Aikawa.