Nihon kuroshakai

I just completed Miike's Black Society trilogy and I found each and every movie to be very enjoyable. The opening film Shinjuku Triad Society was a bit over the top, but I'm still glad I took the time out to watch it. The jewel in this trilogy of movies however easily is Rainy Dog with Ley Lines coming in as a close second. Both of those films were so hauntingly beautiful and yet gritty in its depiction of the character's lives and their struggles. And although the stories in this group of movies are nothing original, they are a testament to the fact that the way a story is told accounts for a lot.

Shinjuke Triad Society - 7 Rainy Dog - 8.75 Ley Lines - 8

Can anyone recommend movies similar to this?

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.

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.

The final part of Takashi Miike's loosely structured "Black Society Trilogy" is an incredibly effective film; one that occasionally suffers from the more adolescent moments of shock and spectacle presented in films such as Dead or Alive (1999) and Ichi the Killer (2001), but one that also manages to ultimately overcome such limitations through the combined quality of the script and the performances. Like the other two films in the trilogy, Shinjuku Triad Society (1995) and Rainy Dog (1997), Ley Lines (1999) focuses on ideas of cultural and spatial disconnection, exile, family and the need to escape. It also exists within the same murky environment, populated by gangsters, pimps, prostitutes and lowlifes, all struggling to survive by whatever means necessary. Though at times incredibly brutal - and featuring one scene that really pushes the levels of taste and decency beyond that of the aforementioned Dead or Alive - there is, nonetheless, a strong sense of humour to the film, and a genuine sense of warmth that is expressed through the four central characters and their position as outcasts within a harsh and ultimately destructive world. It also establishes one of Miike's other recurring themes, that of the importance of family; with characters disconnected from their original families and displaced from society, coming together and forming their own makeshift family-unit with a shared goal of escaping Japan for the potential dream of happiness waiting elsewhere.

It is this central strand of the narrative that defines the film - establishing the background of the characters and the circumstances offered to them in this particular violent underworld - as Miike juxtaposes the more abrasive scenes of gun-play and sexual violence alongside more reflective moments of character and drama. If you're familiar with some of Miike's other films, in particular Birds (2000) and the aforementioned Rainy Dog, then you will be accustomed to this particular stylistic contrast; as the director veers wildly from a shoot-out scene in an alleyway, to a scene of the kids riding their scooters around Tokyo. Moments like this are given an even greater feeling of intimacy and warmth through the use of hand-held cinematography, colour filters and a largely accordion led soundtrack, which establishes quieter moments of transcendence and beauty to punctuate the more shocking instances of violence and brutality. These moments show Miike's true worth as a filmmaker, bringing to mind the sublime beauty of a film like The Bird People of China (1998) with the emphasis placed continually on moments of character; as well as adding a greater depth to the more violent scenes, which simply reinforce the bond between these central characters and their urgent need to escape.

The power of the characters on both sides of the struggle here, win out; making the elements of human drama ultimately more rewarding, and the moments of violence simply adding to this; reinforcing our connection to the characters and the oppression that threatens to destroy them. By the end of the film we're rooting for their escape and their victory over these warring gangs' intent on maintaining the status quo. However, as the film approaches its climax, Miike begins breaking down the elements of reality even further; obscuring the image with dark red colour filters and fragmented compositions, as well as suggesting certain elements of dream logic. As a result, the ending of the film is somewhat enigmatic. Nonetheless, it does tie together the overall themes of the film perfectly, whilst simultaneously suggesting so much more about those continuing ideas of cultural and geographical displacement and the journey that began when both of these characters decided to leave home. Although it isn't an easy film to view, given the often controversial depiction of sexual violence and some of Miike's more jaw-dropping cinematic touches, including those infamous moments of self-censorship, the overall feeling that we are left with as the credits appear is entirely overwhelming.

Ley Lines is certainly a controversial and inscrutable work - very much in tune with films like Rainy Dog, Birds and the epic Agitator (2001) with the continual themes of violence, loyalty, family and dislocation - but one that also manages to move the viewer on an emotional level; eliciting sympathy and understanding for these characters, as well as provoking more immediate reactions that still linger, long after the film has ended. The cast is incredibly varied, featuring a strong mixture of talented new comers like Kazuki Kitamura, Michisuke Kashiwaya and Dan Li, alongside Miike regulars like Tomorowo Taguchi, Naoto Takenaka, Kôji Tsukamoto and the iconic Sho Aikawa. The combination of these bold, affecting and naturalistic performances, combined with the heavily colour-filtered images that employ Miike's regular trademark of spontaneous filming on the streets of Shinjuku, lend the film an intimacy and a sense of urgency that is all the more relevant when we think of the central themes of the story. If you're familiar with Miike's work beyond the more widely seen trio of Dead or Alive, Audition and Ichi the Killer, then Ley Lines is a definite one to watch. With this film, Miike creates a bold and incredibly interesting work that manages to skilfully juggle between moments of brutality and tranquillity, character and action, comedy and drama; while carefully blending them together into a cohesive and ultimately incredibly moving whole.