Dead or Alive 2: Tôbôsha

Dead Or Alive 2 isn't the regular sequel one might expect it to be. Remember, we're dealing with Miike here-and-frankly, this is so weird that it's hard to really claim it to be a sequel at all. The two main characters from the first piece are being kept here and they both make a great performance here.

The story itself is being brought to life by two contract killers who happen to stumble on each other, who turn out to be friends from childhood. Miike ventures into a quite different visual plot, following both the actual Yakuza violence taking place in Tokyo whilst the story's two protagonists are residing on an island in the countryside where they were brought up. I guess I have to see it one more time to really make up my mind about things, but the first impression was neat, as always with Miike. The landscapes and views being exposed in this film is simply amazing and while the thrills of violence aren't numbering as much as in its prequel, there's a good weight put here to comedy and humor instead. Thumbs up. Can't wait to see the final in the trilogy.

Just like Rainy Dog, the second instalment in Takashi Miike's Black Society trilogy, the second part of Dead or Alive is the most introspective part of the trilogy. It's essentially a drama carried by two superb lead actors with Sho Aikawa and Riki Takeuchi who develop great chemistry on screen, elaborates on the characters' identities in a harmonious and nostalgic vibe and features exotic natural landscapes on a remote island that contrast the big city life and define the smooth atmosphere of this movie. The movie is surprisingly relaxing for a Takashi Miike film without getting completely rid of the filmmaker's quirky trademark scenes. The brief moments of violence and sexual innuendo are probably even more efficient because they are quite short and concise this time.

Dead or Alive 2: Birds opens and closes with Takashi Miike's excessive action sequences but the main part of this film focuses on the character development of two contract killers who realize they have grown up together and been childhood friends and who decide to work as a team for a good cause in order to rid the world of pitiless criminals and donate their money to buy vaccines for children in developing countries. Aside of the facts that both movies focus on Japanese crime syndicates and its associates and that both movies feature the same main actors, this film is completely different from the first movie in terms of atmosphere, characters and story. Aside of a few experiments with flashbacks and some minor religious symbolism, this is also one of Takashi Miike's most realistic movies.

It's possible to dismiss the quirky first part and adore the more mature second part but it wouldn't be surprising to dislike the first movie for its exaggeration and the second one for its realism. Personally, I appreciate both movies for what they are but have a preference for the first part because I thought it was addicting from start to finish while the second instalment had a few minor length in the middle section. Takashi Miike fans should watch and purchase all three parts of the excellent Dead or Alive trilogy anyway.

Dead Or Alive 2 is a name only sequel to Takashi Miike's breakout Yakuza movie Dead Or Alive. Lead actors Show Aikawa and Riki Takeuchi made such a good impression together in the original that they just had to be brought back for another round, but here they play different characters in far different circumstances, in a movie that is very different from its predecessor. In fact, it's pretty different from any other movie I can think of, which is an accomplishment that Takashi Miike seems able to produce time and time again.

The DVD case tries to sell the movie as an ultra-violent gross out pic, which Takashi Miike is certainly capable of producing (and which DOA 1 was to a degree). In fact this is rather a misrepresentation. There are a few scenes of violence, and they are typically extreme, but they are few and far between, and really just serve as a backdrop for a fairly mannered and whimsical character driven drama.

Show Aikawa and Riki Takeuchi grew up together in an orphanage on a remote Japanese island, where they had good times and were the best of friends. But Show Aikawa is taken away to Osaka as a teen, and the boys do not see each other until many years later when they are both grown men. They meet up again on the island where they grew up, both on the run from the Yakuza. They chat, play games and contemplate what life has made of them.

DOA 2 has certain similarities with Takeshi Kitano's brilliant Sonatine, as gangsters are forced to take Time Out in an idyllic location and regress towards childhood. Miike makes the movie his own though, and the characters in particular stand out as unique and surprisingly likeable. The movie is usually billed as a comedy, and there are many very funny moments, but there's an underlying tenderness and melancholy behind it all too. It's a movie that definitely has the "heart" that Miike movies are sometimes (unjustly) accused of lacking.

Show Aikawa undoubtedly steals the show from co-star Riki Takeuchi this time around, being far more animated and interesting. Takeuchi is brilliantly deadpan and stoic, but that doesn't work as well for him in this movie as many of his others. Both actors make their characters believable and engage the audience in their fates well though. Look out for an absolutely brilliant cameo from director Shinya Tsukamoto too.

DOA 2 is another uniquely Miike movie, full of little moments and details that showcase that imagination and intellect which I dare say are unparalleled in modern cinema. It's a much less stylised movie than DOA 1, but probably more substantial, probably more rewatchable. A highly recommended movie.

In no way, other than name, is this a sequel to the previous years, Dead or Alive. We have the same two main actors but here, Sho Aikawa and Riki Takeuchi play different characters who come together after a big gangland hit to, basically, reminisce about their childhood together. There is fierce violence but this has gentle and reflective periods, that reminds one more of Takeshi Kitano's Sonatine than the more usual Miike product. Indeed, whilst this is not easy to follow, with its flashbacks and incomplete tales, it is further made mysterious with magic acts and surreal moments. Nevertheless a likeable film with amazing visuals, just not all of exploding body parts.

The problem it seems for so many Miike viewers is that their expectations build up from viewing earlier films. And then they expect all of his films to meet those expectations. And then whine and bitch when he confounds them. Why can not you all accept each of his films on it's own terms? Why would you expect DOA 2 to be like DOA 1? If you do, you don't know Miike and his approach to movie making.

The DOA TRILOGY is, it seems to me, Miike's meditation on the relationship between seemingly opposing energetic masculine 'forces'. In the films these forces are characterized in various ways: 'good'/'bad', 'light'/'dark', 'white'/'black', 'social'/'antisocial', police/gangs, Yakuza/triad, bla bla bla. And in this respect the trilogy is a meditation on man-to-man relations in general in our world today. In the first film, like positive and negative electrons, the personifications of these forces eventually annihilate one another in a cataclysmic explosion that destroys the planet that really messes with the audience's mind.

In the second film the embodiment of these forces are brought back together to explore the possibility of their working together as a positive conjunction for a 'greater good'. They are also shown here to have originated from more or less the same source. Their relationship here is glossed with 'gay' overtones. (A theme in more than a few of Miike's films.) But it would seem that the 'world' is unable to accept such a relationship, such a 'love' if you will, and the world eventually hunts them down and destroys them. This inevitability suffuses the whole film with a melancholic dread. Even in the lightest (and yes) Funny moments, you are aware that fate is stalking this Appollo/Dionysius pair relentlessly to bring them down. And of course the 'Furies' do descend on them (in a bizarre contemporary incarnation only Miike would have been able to think of!) and do destroy them. Though this time with a whisper and not a BANG. In musical terms DOA 2 can be seen as a kind of 'apache adagio', a dance of death.

So many people commenting on Miike's films here talk about his 'slow' moods as if 'slow' is a bad word. (If you are a speed freak then I guess 'slow' is a bad word in your vocabulary.) But it is to Miike's credit that he so obviously understands that some of the more profound of human experiences are lived in 'slow-motion' and can only be expressed and appreciated artistically in that mode. One has only to see some of his filmed interviews to know just how much he appreciates the 'slow' and 'still' in human experience. He is, after all, the product of a Zen culture. The two protagonists, Takeuchi & Aikawa, obviously know they are doomed. So they are doing their utmost to genuinely savior their remaining days. Much of this time is spent in a lush verdant countryside rather than in the city. And we are given the opportunity to savior their experience with them at their own pace. If one will but go on the trip with them it is a delicious beautiful bittersweet painful sad trip you feel lucky to have been allowed to trail along on.

I would characterize DOA 1 as being a trip for the groin and guts. DOA 2 as a trip for the heart. And DOA 3 as a trip for the mind/intellect. It was a stroke of genius on Miike's part to realize that he could introduce 2 characters in one film. Kill them off at the end of it. And then reanimate them in a second and then a third film with more or less totally different stories. And still have all 3 films truly be about those 2 same characters. And do it in such a way that they only reach full development at the end of the third film. Undoubtedly DOA 1 is the best of the 3 films. And all 3 films can and do stand well on their own. But it is equally true that the WHOLE STORY only gets 'told' by the trilogy.