As the Gods Will

It had been a few years since I had seen a new Takashi Miike movie before somehow stumbling upon the trailer for As the Gods Will, which had such delightful and self-consciously silly visuals like a floating head (or a Doramus or whatever it's called) making teenagers heads explode - the blood is actually red marbles though so it's alright - or a talking Polar bear crushing other teens into mulch for being caught as liars. Seeing this was a very good reminder about how much fun Miike can have when he has some characters that he likes - and others he knows he can kill in some creative and occasionally gruesome ways - but it's also about translating a Manga to screen in a way that is... I won't say more "kid" friendly, but certainly more accessible than the transgressive and really bonkers Ichi the Killer, also based on a Manga. But as with most things, with Miike there is a curve.

So many of his films are bizarre WTF-fests that something like As the Gods Will gets kind of close to the top... ten perhaps, maybe not five, but that's saying just how insane he's taken the visuals and surrealism and fantasy in his past work - also see The Happiness of the Katakuris, Gozu or The Great Yokhai War for more examples, or any given Dead or Alive movie, mostly the first one - and how he could give less than a damn about good taste or morality, at least in the sense of offending imprudent tastes. With this, the parallels one might think to Battle Royale are apparent up front, with high schoolers being slaughtered left and right (though in this case one by one by a giant floating talking head that will only stop if, according to him/it, someone presses the big red button on the opposite side of its face), but there's also here a much cheerier version of Saw, where there are many "games" to play, but it's not like these students have been picked out for being bad or need to be taught lessons.

Matter of fact, its not totally clear why there are these objects like a giant cat that will kill the students in the gym it's at because, uh, there are mice costumes that need to be put on(!) or the Polar Bear or other floating dolls that sing songs and make one guess who is singing and so on. I think this is perhaps due to being a *very* Japanese movie (I haven't read the Manga, but also this movie is hard to track down in the US, it's only available as an import and even rarer to get to play on an American DVD player), and that there is not much at all explained in the way of why there are these... giant floating cubes ala the movie Arrival floating above major cities. Are there terrorist attacks? Nope, says a guy who looks like a Japanese Wario from the NES games; these are aliens... or are they?

Why are they coming to Earth to make teenagers play these life/death games? What do these "Gods" want from us? But on the other hand, hey, who cares? Miike gets us invested enough in the small handful of characters that seem to be liking, Shun being the main character who has lived a "boring" life before and is now having to think on his wits every moment of these games, so that we are focused on their will-they-won't-theys as they face off against these bizarro elements. The characters, including the punk Amayo who seems like he's ego-maniacal from minute one, are types, but the writers and Miike know how to make them into human beings that we can get behind in all of his, and as bat**** everything gets, we have them as an anchor, at least of a sort. So while there certainly could be just a little, even a small scene, where things could be explained (a friend I watched this with said more might come in a sequel, and good luck with all of that I say), and a small side character that is on the outside world, a shut-in, watching all of what's happening on TV could've had a little more going on with him, what the filmmaker does with these five acts (and it's really five, not three) is remarkable.

This is tenacious, entertaining cinema that will certainly delight those who are more accustomed to the... idiosyncrasies of Japanese genre cinema (bordering, or just, exploitation filmmaking, though Miike is a cut above, say, the guys who do like Tokyo Gore Police or the Machine Girl or schlock like that, he really cares about his shots and he has had for a long time a great sense of comic timing). There's even an element of, in short, if this were a Japanese anime/animated film, we probably might not think twice about 75% of what goes on here. That it's in live action makes it all the more purely Gonzo, and all the more of a fun time for it, albeit with a sad ending.

I wish I could say that this movie is worth watching but I really don't think it is except for the die hard asian cinema fan. For someone who likes anime, this might be up their alley but for the run of the mill movie goer, I really don't think it would be that enjoyable except for the first twenty minutes or so. The novelty wears off and none of the characters are much deeper than a Dragon Ball Z character. If you didn't get that reference, skip this one.

As the Gods Will is a bloody movie. That said, the blood scenes, at least some of them, weren't that well executed, thus the gore was easier to watch. However, as there are many disturbing daeths, I wouldn't recommend it to someone who can't handle blood. For the story, the plot was nice and there were some interesting characters, especially the lead and that creepy secons lead. And the riddles were entertaining to watch, and not too difficult to follow. However, the ending was not as good. I guess what bothered me was that the movie never went deeper than the riddle part, like, why didn't they asked why this was happening and for what purpose. Also, the ending felt quite open, but there is no second movie of this, so I do have to cut points for that. So, six and a half out of ten.

Here is another good film by one of my favorite Japanese directors Takashi Miike. This film is based off a manga of the same name and shows the first arc of the manga. From the very beginning of the film it's really interesting and catches your attention unlike other films where the attention has to be caught sometime inwards. The basic premise of the film is students having to play games to survive and if you lost at these games you die gruesome deaths. There is a lot of blood and death and the characters in this film are a mix of actual people and CGI characters. I liked the CGI of the fictional characters in this film because it seemed to fit so well with everything. It's not like that completely horrible animation where it sucks.

The synopsis to this toy store killing machine immediately brings an earlier Japanese film to mind, the ruthless and fumingly shocking 'Battle Royale, 2000' from auteur Kinji Fukasaku (Tora! Tora! Tora!, 1970). However Miike's film-cunning and dice rolls are perhaps simply far more simple than the keen viewer would like to imagine. Simple thus unworried, assured, extremely dark-humored, filled with rapid-fire philosophy and at least six blood banks blown to pieces.

Take the sound editing for instance. We know what has happened despite the event not being shown and instead replaced by an elementary sound or a children's song. 'As the Gods Will' is a director's nightmare, a feat only someTHING like Miike can execute.

Splattered with a plethora of psyched out colours and one of the few films where the CGI works like the crown wheel of the Oyster Perpetual, Miike's direction feels more confident as his obsession with Manga and Nao Ômori (Ichi the Killer, 2001) grows into a playful bear, the size of two Transformers, when they're not vehicles.

This film is filled with surreal images and evidently decapitated mannequins with floored extras mixed in with the lot. It is 'Maze Runner' meets 'The Running Man' inside Miike's Daedalian head. Perhaps that is an overstatement, probably I'm still thinking; 'but seriously, what's the deal here?'. However it may be, Miike has paid homage to ancient Japanese films of gore... I mean yore. Well not really, this seems more like the stop motion films from the Golden Age of Japanese cinema and director Ishiro Honda - but 'As the Gods Will' is sort of an antithesis to those films in terms of its antagonist's characterization and build up.

The director's films are far from subtle, including this baby cannibal elephant; however this time there is a certain calm undercurrent to the approach and style of the hypermanic Takashi Miike.

A strangely entertaining film that must be watched to further strengthen faith in the art of cinema.

Absolutely unbelievable.