MPD Psycho

It comes to mind immediately for comparison- Twin Peaks, the great cult TV show, as being what Takashi Miike used as influence for his much more 'cult (or rather, little seen but raved in its small circles of fandom) take on an investigation of bizarre crimes in an even more bizarre half real-half dream environment. In so much that Miike, via Eiji Ootsuka's original Magna book, does create something of an alternate reality, where the multiple personalities transfer, where the blurred vision of the girls in the room with strange incantations, and where it rains green drops, this is an accurate comparison to the notorious black lodge in Lynch's universe.

But even through Miike's own acknowledged influence from Lynch (one can see it pretty clearly in Miike's Gozu), it's only something of a surface comparison at best. MPD Psycho is perhaps even MORE confusing, at least at first, than TP, with the circumstances surrounding the crimes to hold a lot more mystery, and just weird f***ed up adult-oriented Japanese theatrics, and with its protagonist with just as many demons and past troubles as those he's after. Plus, in the world of MPD, there's no telling if the actual victim may be the criminal as well, or what might be connected or not.

As with a good whammy of a Manga (or for that matter the average bear of a Miike flick), MPD Psycho is filled with incredible visual tricks and experiments, with animated bits (the little girl drawn before our eyes), intentionally crude visual effects (the rain drops, the quick visions into another personality as it transfers to another), and even creative censorship; who knew that a filmmaker as outrageous and shocking as this could make it a riot to see private parts and ultra-bloody sections blurred out and make it *work* for the sake of the show?

Like Miike at his best, there are very satisfying doses of dark comedy thrown in, sometimes unintentionally ("not your baby miss, you're just a vessel?"), and sometimes with the dead-aim of Miike at his most playful (the scenes in the big police lecture-hall where the one officer creates little clay figures he's very proud of) and savage, like the numerous moments of unexpected violence- here toned down but still graphic in-so-much as what isn't shown, and how uncomfortable the subject matter becomes in dealing with dead-end abortions and whacked out Catholic girls. As with the most depraved scenes in Ichi the Killer and Visitor Q, sometimes one can't help but chuckle through the mayhem.

Reccomending a series like MPD Psycho, perhaps, is a little trickier than in simply going on about what makes it a work where clarity in knowing what is going on- and it's not really incoherent when piecing it bit by bit, which the screenwriters and Miike end up doing very cleverly as each episode goes along (with, by the way, an excellent turn from the ultra-cool but doomed Amamiya/Kobayashi/who knows)- but rather if it would appeal to the average CSI type of TV viewer, or just to Miike's fan-base. In truth, I'd say for the former it's worth a shot, if only to see how Japan goes about turning the conventions of an mystery programmer on its head with levels of rough horror and chills and in-your-face satire. Though that being said, it's certainly not for anyone, not least of which for those who expect their detective stories to make sense every step of the way. This one, at least at the start, seems like a mystery coiled up in another mystery about how the bar-codes work, how they figure into the detective(s) and what Lucy has to do with it all, and Amamiya/Kobayashi's partner, and so on, which can be a little frustrating.

However, if you love how much of a wild-man Miike can get with already subversive material, MPD- Psycho is for ardent fans and casual admirers a trippy concoction where science fiction, film-noir, and the aforementioned Magna combine somewhat into a sweet mini-series event. As groundbreaking as TP? Not quite, but it's a lot of fun watching Miike create silly myth and disturbing subversion all the same.

Worth a look on DVD. This Japanese series melds a Twin Peaks like surrealism, with Manga inspired graphics and story line. Grumpy old detectives try to track down a mysterious being that jumps from person to person through the Japanese underworld, inspiring each one to go on a killing spree. Sounds clichéd, but some fantastic photography melded with oddly juxtaposed CGI and extremely graphic violence take it away from the norm. Pretty incomprehensible to start with, but strangely gripping none the less. In Japanese with English subtitles, which make it even more difficult to follow. First episode is excellent, but later episodes become more formulaic.

I'd liked the Takashi Miike films I'd seen so far, but I found this pretty disappointing. I'd bought it, but I won't be keeping it.

I saw it on the Adness DVD, which has just two episodes. In the first, a killer abducts women, cuts the top of their skull off to expose the brain, plants them in the ground up to their chin, and plants a flower in the brain. You can tell that from the DVD box. In the movie, the top of the head is digitally blurred out by TV static. Had you not seen the DVD box, the viewer wouldn't know what people were looking at until later a young cop produced a small model of the body. Oddly, there is also a flash frame later on of the woman's head and it is not censored. Apart from this, I'm not really sure what was going on. Some women get phone calls, and a sketchy animated character cavorts around when that happens. An animated character also appears on TV screens sometimes. It's unclear if anybody sees it.

In the second episode, pregnant women are being found cut open and their babies are missing. Again, a cop produces a model of what the corpses are like, which is helpful since again the actual body is censored. There is also a natural birth in the movie, but oddly even that baby and the umbilical cord are censored! According the the DVD box, uncensored versions were not kept when this was originally made. Perhaps even if they had, if they knew they were going to be censored, maybe they didn't bother actually showing anything...? Not sure.

If I hear the later episodes are better, maybe I'll look for them. As it is, I won't bother.

Takashi Miike was given the daunting task of translating the MPD Psycho manga onto film, and no other Japanese director could have done it as successfully as he has.

Let me clarify my above statement: the MPD Psycho series is nowhere as good as Audition or Ichi The Killer, but given the material and the constrictions of Japanese television, Miike used his experience to craft a tense, psychological story that hits a nerve with me every time I watch it.

Miike has a knack for exploiting weaknesses in the scripts he's given, and MPD Psycho is no exception. The manga is dense with plots, subplots and characters, and I get the feeling that Miike recognized the fact that translation would be difficult, so he chose a schizophrenic approach to making the series. This approach works for any viewer (like me) that has enough patience to watch the entire series from beginning to end. Watching one episode will get you confused, but watching them all in chronological order is a satisfying experience that eventually unfolds a colorful and chaotic story.

Technically, the series - on first look - suffers from a low budget, but once again Miike exploits this as he has on several of his other films. Colors are saturated and sharply contrast with each other, light and shadow are over-accentuated, and it all give the feel of seeing the world through the eyes a synesthesia-suffering psychopath. The special effects are overdone (neon rain, urine-colored skies), but it all adds to the effect. It's like watching a serial killer music video from the early 1980s.

The plot is probably the hardest thing for people to get around. I had to watch the entire thing from beginning to end several times before I finally understood what the hell was going on; there are so many subplots and twists that the viewer becomes overwhelmed after the first ten minutes. In addition, Miike's use of flashbacks and juxtaposition, while adding to the schizophrenic feeling that underlines the series, makes it hard to follow the storyline without feeling slightly unbalanced at the end of each episode.

There are so many characters introduced by the end of the second episode that you start to lose track of who's who and why they're doing what they're doing. That's why it's a MUST to watch it all chronologically. Some of the characters don't have their motivation or importance in the story explained until way after their introduction. At points, some characters disappear entirely until they make another reappearance further down the line. It's all rather overwhelming but very rewarding- each character is entertaining and has some sort of story to tell. My favorite is police chief Sasayama (wonderfully played by Ren Osugi), who goes through so much crap to expose the truth that by the end of the series you've got to feel sorry for him.

All in all, MPD Psycho is certainly not one of Takashi Miike's best works, but it showcases his talent and showmanship more than any of his other projects. Watch it through its entirety and you won't be disappointed, especially if you're a Miike fan.

If you are a fan of Boys over flowers, you will love this.

No! I'm kidding.

How to describe this.

Gruesome, funny (although not very often, but I did laugh out loud at least once) bizarre, disturbing, wacked out.