Like a Dragon

Miike has proved to be one of the most versatile and reliably inventive directors of the last decade. He is no longer merely Japanese; his movies reach an ever-growing audience in Europe, America and elsewhere. Capably of churning out several films a year (owing to his background in the B-cinema of straight-to-video yakuza action variety), even the best of Miike's films have a sense of fleetingness - not to say hurriedness - to them. That is because, for Miike, more is more. Frugality be damned. The film under review is NOT one of his most polished works, but it is smooth and shiny, and thoroughly entertaining from start to finish. And a faithful adaptation to boot.

You see, with "Like A Dragon", the celebrated but wacky director enters the world of video game screen adaptations, translating Sega's Playstation 2 hit game "Yakuza" into cinematic terms. But Tomb Raider or Doom this is not. For one, "Yakuza" (which I've played and enjoyed) had a much superior storyline to most other games out there. Thrilling and dark, the story of the game gets adapted, with seeming ease, into Miike-speak. How did they condense a 15-hour storyline into a 100-minute movie? Not perfectly, but satisfactorily. A few jumps and omissions bespeak the origins of the story, but overall the story holds.

The reason for this easy transition is clear: The world of the yakuza, petty criminals, cops and street urchins is right in well-tested Miike territory. After dozens of films that deal with the underworld of Japan, the veteran director knows his stuff. A yakuza game + a yakuza director is a marriage made in (some perverted) heaven. Visually, too, this film captures the atmosphere and locale of the game. The colour spectrum of both the outdoors shots and the indoor sets is pleasing to the eye, and almost every shot is beautiful to look at. Especially in a few indoors shots there is poetry to violence.

Mixing humour (as Miike does) with violence and tragedy, the film never loses its edge. Miike captures both the serious and comic side of the thugs and social rejects in the film. Many of the characters in the game, especially the young girl, Haruka, and the delinquent teenage lovers are really likable and you really feel for their fates.

The storyline may leave those who haven't played the game hanging (just who-what-where?), but it isn't necessary to play the game to appreciate the movie. They both stand on their own.

Lucky for Miike to have such good source material, and lucky for Sega to be able to attach one of the great directors of today in a project that otherwise would have been doomed to mediocrity. Salvaged by style and visual richness, "Like A Dragon" is an above-average Miike film with enough twists and turns to make you feel like game-to-movie adaptations ARE possible after all. Uwe Boll and Paul W.S. Anderson - take notes and learn!

Like a dragon is an adaptation of the first entry in video game franchise titled yakuza, which creates a problem since yakuza is a heavily story driven game. In length, one game could be compared to a long season in a tv show drama so you can imagine the problems of trying it to adapt in to 110 minute movie, but let's focus on the positives first.

Visually, this is a perfect adaptation of the source material, it might be even the best attempt at a live action adaptation of any media in general. Kamurocho is no different from the games and it feels like a real place while still being gorgeous to look at, it doesn't feel fake nor cheap, same could be said about the outfits, that being said, you really cannot mess up something simple as a suit. The action scenes are also great, while not as violent as in the games they do feel similar to the ones in game, even the shootouts, despite the game not focusing on gun combat. I also have to mention the use of crazy ken band songs since they were used through out the series.

As for the story there is a reason why i wanted to get in to the good stuff first, like i stated before, original story was long... for a movie that is, so there had to be compromises. Characters had to be removed or in some cases replaced with counterparts that had less story to them, chapters had to be skipped, lots of story had to be told in dialouges, good example of that is the fact that story of this movie begins what it would be in game chapter 4 out of 13 and it is said that chapter 2 and 3 didn't happen because of removal of very important to the story characters because of that even more of the later story is missing. The solution to that was making the main obstacle Majima, character who in game appeared 3 times, 2 times for a fight only because he wanted to fight main character and didn't care about the main plot, it sounds like a negative and partially it is but Majima is very very enjoyable to watch. The problem it creates is that "the main plot" doesn't really have characters participating in it because the main bad guy is a guy with his own agenda so when he is finally defeated and we got to the ending, it doesn't have any weight to it, it has three characters that appear very briefly and were mentioned like couple times while in the game they had bigger role, just like the plot itself.

Despite that you could have worked around it in some way but the other main issue is that a huge chunk of this movie is focused on to sidestories which i am mixed about. They're fun, one is a comedic while the other dramatic, they feel in spirit of the games substories, stories that were given by often random people to the player that were neat distractions from the main plot, but that's what they were, distractions and while in game it works since you can stop a games plot at any time without it feeling to weird in movies it doesn't work so well. Despite being invested in them and enjoying, if i had a choice i would replace them for more screen time for the main plot since they take too much time.

It may sound like this movie is a junk that should be thrown in to the bad video game adaptations pile but i strongly recommend this movie simply for the aesthethics and most scenes, the plot will be confusing to someone who hasn't played the games but let's be honest, if you went to look for this movie, chances are you already played them and know the plot well.

I just read in another review for the movie, that this is based on the (somewhat) popular game "Yakuza" (a third installment of which is supposed to come out this year for the two next generation consoles). Since I haven't played the game, I can't tell you how accurate this adaptation is.

If you're a Miike fan, than you don't need my review for an opinion. But if this is about to be your first Miike movie or you haven't heard of him, let me tell you, that his "style" (cheap and fast, that's why he makes quite a few movies every year) aren't everyones taste. They are somewhat original though and have many weird/strange ideas thrown into the mix. This is not different here and the movie is quite enjoyable in an almost sick kind of way. Not for the squeamish ... but then again, which Miike movie is for a sensible audience? Exactly!

Having played 0-6 just since the pandemic, they are all fresh in my mind. I also have a great affection for characters, appreciate the convoluted plots, and love wild insanity that make Yakuza games like a Japanese Monty Python at times.

It is one the best game adaptations I have played. It is not condescending or trying too hard to wedge in game mechanics. Even when it does, it has that Kung Fu Hustle kind of wink about it. Everything from beating people with crates and traffic cones, to Poppo and Don Quixote brawls, to seeing Kamurocho as a backdrop and actually recognizing buildings and streets.

That said, it's like they just wrote a story set in the Yakuza 1 game, and in the last 20min remembered they needed to make a movie based on the source material. There are at least 2-3 subplots with unrelated characters that suck all the time and oxygen out of the story, who are not even in the game. If you hadn't played the games, you may have had fun instead in the first 3/4 of the movie, and then wondered who the hell these titular people were at the end and what was going on.

Other than getting to hang out with Kiryu one more time, it was a total waste of fun material and decent story that would have had no problem translating to the screen.

There´s a lot of missed elements, they may don´t talk about some things but is still interesting.

The plot of the robbers can be one of the best things in this movie, was really funny and cool to see the cast.

Goro Majima was the coolest character and I believe that the "Majima everywhere" in "YAKUZA KIWAMI" was inspired by the actor and motivations of Majima in the movie

The personality of Majima is all what you see in the rest of the games

Miike is a very versatile director, gory movies, "snuff" movies, horror movies, history movies, comedy movies and action movies.