Jitsuroku Andô Noboru kyôdô-den: Rekka

Miike shows us in this film his outstanding gift for the yakuza genre from the first minute to the last. This time he adds a soundtrack from the Flower Traveling Band, Satori, a Doom Metal key album from 1971 that makes those master shoots, of perfect color, shine without stopping during the cinematographic experience he proposes. His characters flow before the viewer like a handful of impossible to stop Japanese scarfaces. Shinjuku, mafia, escorts, magic and Rock and Roll !!

excerpt, more at my location - A yakuza film is bread and butter for Takashi Miike, and Deadly Outlaw: Rekka (Jitsuroku Andô Noboru kyôdô-den: Rekka), sandwiched between the sadistic violence of Ichi The Killer and the surrealism of Gozu, is surprisingly ordinary when compared with much of the director's oeuvre. However, the straightforward nature of this 2002 film is the essence of its charm.

Deadly Outlaw: Rekka is such unabashed fun it will leave you feeling indulgent and sporting a maniacal grin from start to finish, just like the one, you might imagine subsequent to viewing, Miike wore while making it. Concentrated to an hour-and-a-half, as so few recent films are, it hits you like a shot of pure audio-visual entertainment straight in the arm.

This was really one great ride from Takashi Miike, if you love or you are familliar with his style you will really enjoy Deadly Outlaw:Rekka, it is not intelligent movie, it is not movie with a big budget but it is entertraining and full of energy, and yes the cast in this one is amazing, so many great memorable faces from Japanese cinema, sadly a lot of them are now deceased: Joe Yamanaka, Rikiya Yasuoka, Yuya Uchida, Tetsuro Tanba, Shin'ichi Chiba and the main protagonist of the movie Riki Takeuchi, this is one of his most memorable roles for sure. The first half of the movie is like any other regular Yakuza movie, the second part is more unique cartoonish Miike style, and it works in the movie very well, love the ending when Riki is taking Bazooka to destroy his enemies. You will remember this movie thanks to magnificent cast and its charachters, i enjoyed this one more than more known Dead or Alive. In the same day i have watched Kikoku or Yakuza Demon from 2003, it is different sort of the movie, more regular Yakuza crime, but my recoomendation is to watch it in combination with Deadly Outlaw Rekka. I give this one 8/10.

Those of you that are used to American-style movies, don't watch this because you're probably going to be bored. People, like me, who are used to weird Japanese movie-styles will mildly enjoy this movie. The editing is very strange, sometimes you get the impression that your DVD has skipped, the sound is also weird in some places, I can't explain exactly what's wrong with it but watch this film and you'll know what I mean.

I recently watched "Imprint". That's an episode in the "Masters Of Horror"-series directed by Takashi Miike. THAT's what I call a strong and violent film. It was awesome!

Don't expect too much and you will be entertained. But not as much as you expected. A decent watch. Nothing to keep.

Assassins from the Otaki group murder Yuya Uchida (manager/producer of 1970's psychedelic prog metal band Flower Travellin' Band, who provide the film's soundtrack) leader of the Sanada group. Riki Takeuchi considered him a father figure and wants vengeance, but the leaders of both groups want to avoid a war and enlist Bando group leader Sonny Chiba to negotiate a truce.

So ... it's all a scheme by both groups second-in-commands to eliminate the leaders and take over, with Chiba running the whole show. They trick Takeuchi into killing Otaki group leader Renji Ishibashi and then try to kill him to close all loose ends. Those loose ends stay very much open.

Takashi Miike has a tendency to make films that are so loose and ramshackle that they feel like they may fall apart at any minute. This is one of those. That doesn't mean they're necessarily bad ... and this one certainly isn't ... but it does mean that after a really dynamic opening and before it's amazing gonzo conclusion, you get a lot of meandering scenes of yakuza dumping plot exposition on each other. It's not always dull ... mainly due to Miike's tendency to stage very weird scenes like two yakuza talking outdoors in a playground in the rain each holding tiny transparent plastic umbrellas ... but it frequently is.

The Flower Travellin' Band soundtrack is worth the price of admission.