As the Gods Will

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.

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.

WOW! This is NOT my normal fare, let me tell you. Normally I would cross to the other side of the 'street' rather than watch many of Takashi Miike's films. BUT... I had indeed kind of braced myself for a bit of a cartoony gore-fest, although that is NOT my first choice in films. But, this premise was SO damn WAAAAAAAAY OUT there, that I just had to check it out.

Man, I truly do not know where to start... I am still kind of reeling a bit from the film, which I JUST finished. Well, firstly, it was not really that realistically gory or graphic; it mostly had a more cartoon-like vibe to it. And, regardless of the director's NOTORIOUS proclivity for extreme, sadistic violence (thus my normal avoidance of his films) this one honestly came off as not really that explicit or 'Real'. Other films of his where he has actual PEOPLE doing horrific, REALISTIC things to other people, I wouldn't come within 100 miles of, but based upon the extremely Fantastical premise, I figured that this would not likely be another one of his super heavy-handed Sadist- fests, and it truly wasn't.

YES, the basic premise of what these 'Gods' are doing to these students is of course in principle quite terrible. But, that really wasn't the point of the film; the primary focus was NOT just a big set-piece for a bunch of gory deaths, although those do happen, but for most part, with a couple of exceptions (where I did FF a bit) they were not graphic or overly explicit.

At the end, without giving anything away, you are left with a feeling that there are more layers to this than seems evident on the surface. As a matter of fact, the last minute or two actually left me kind of puzzled because I didn't quite understand what exactly happened (so I will be frigg'n LIVING on discussion boards until I find that out!) One underlying level of the film is fairly apparent concerning the one fellow learning to appreciate the life that he has (sort of a Psychedelic, Acid-induced 'IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE' by way of Takashi Miike) But, even beyond that there are other things touched upon and quite unexpectedly thought-provoking.

So, I can fully understand how some here (3/5?) who are likely VERY hard core Miike fans, would be BITTERLY disappointed that this is NOT one of his usual more horrific and sadistic films, and probably just find this one totally Stupid. Understandable... BUT... for me, NOT a usual fan of Miike, heh... what I would call by comparison a 'Normal' person (using the term VERY loosely) I think the movie if you give it some thought, actually is more intriguing and entertaining and surprisingly thought-provoking than what might appear at first glance.

So, I would say that if you are a hard core Miike fan and you really LIKE his usual hard core stuff, than this film will probably leave you flatter than Chaz Bono. BUT... If you like your Horror films REALLY Imaginative, and you aren't just looking for a bunch of torture-porn sadism, and if you can be patient and give the movie some thought, I think that many people will definitely come away from seeing this with several different feelings and levels that the movie touches in you that you would not expect...

I watched this film without reading the manga prior. I've watched some of Miike's ultraviolent movies before this but going in forward, i've not set any expections for this movie.

I'd like to mention the positive things first. I love Miike's violent movies. I think he's the best director for this genre, and there are a lot of em expecially in the first half of the movie. However, the black comedy moments seemed to shine the most in this film. I remembered laughing out loud in a few scenes in this movie and that's an impressive feat.

That's all the about the good stuff, unfortunately. The film was marred by a lot of terrible aspects. One of them was the antagonist. I believe it's a bad casting overall. The antagonist was portrayed as edgy and the actor seemed to hate this role. It was obvious he tried too hard and it ended up being cringe thorughout the film.

The absolute worst of this film is definitely the ending. It lead to more questions and plot holes, leaving all the viewers begging for answers. Let's just say it's the slimiest, hairiest balls that was shoved on your face. You'll get me when you get there.

Based on manga with the same title, Kamisama no iu tôri (As the Gods Will) is a story of average high school students forced to play a series of deadly games. Takeshi Miike who has proved capable with such theme is the perfect pick to create a fascinating, occasionally humorous and gory live action of the manga. He has a distinct stylish visual, timely touch of horror and a proper respect to the original source.

For such grimly movie, the cinematography is very sleek and cool. Viewpoints from above and panoramic shots are used often to set the ambiance. Visual offers bloody gore with mildly tone down violence. For the part of full blood pool of the manga, this movie counterpart uses a more comical effect yet without neglecting the intensity of the scene. In fact Miike, as expected, produces a couple of nasty gruesome sequences of his own.

Humor and philosophical elements are steadily present. The first half sees more comedy for ironic purpose, as the story progresses and the death dealing intensifies the tone tends to be more serious. The movie has taken the liberty of creating more appropriate screenplay for later games. This is due to the fact that it might become overly complex for a feature length movie to display later arcs, and frankly it's not a cause for concern as the new screenplay is still presentable and keeps all the thrilling attributes of the manga.

Miike has a knack for the unassuming shift of tone, as seen from Crows Zero and 13 Assassins. Sometimes the movie would transition from quiet scene to a rather explicit one. It doesn't venture into dark territory too much, but it does warrant a mature rating. If there's any concern, it's that the nature of the games is highly inspired by Japanese culture, this might create a rather awkward narrative at some points though it's only a minor hindrance.

Equally quirky and disturbing, the myriad of bizarrely captivating games of death is brought to live by Takeshi Miike.