La Cité des âmes perdues

The extraordinary movies of the astonishingly prolific Takashi Miike take most viewers quite a bit getting used to, so if you've never seen one of his difficult to categorize films before you're in for a wild ride! His best known movie is probably the modern horror classic 'Audition'. An utterly brilliant movie to be sure, but not really all that representative of the rest of his high octane genre-busting output. Many of his fans regard 'Dead Or Alive' as one of his greatest works, and while I certainly agree it is one of the most extraordinary and original movies released in recent years, it was way too uneven for my liking and marred by one of the most ludicrous endings I've ever seen. 'City Of Lost Souls' is a much less bizarre and extreme experience than 'DOA'. It reaches neither the highs of that movie, nor the lows, and therefore is probably as good a place as any to get into Miike's world, which is quite unlike any other let me tell you! The plot itself is a fairly standard lovers on the run thing that we've seen in countless movies before ('Bonnie And Clyde', 'The Getaway', 'Badlands', 'Wild At Heart', 'True Romance',etc.etc.) but with Miike "plot" is basically just an excuse for messing with the audience's mind and expectations. The multi-racial nature of the cast and the seemingly random and sometimes confusing geographic settings help disorientate the viewer, which allows Miike to slip in some memorable set pieces and images. One in particular, the chicken fighting scene, had me literally speechless, and is one of the funniest and most unexpected sequences I've ever seen. But still, unlike 'DOA', Miike never goes too far into sheer silliness, and that makes 'City Of Lost Souls' are much more consistent and enjoyable experience for me. Maybe if I'd watched this movie first then worked my way up to 'DOA' my reaction to the latter would be more positive, who can say? I would definitely recommend Miike novices to watch this one first before they explore his more outrageous movies. Love him or hate him, you cannot ignore Takashi Miike, a film maker who makes overrated fanboy faves like David Fincher and Guy Ritchie look like the slow kids in the back of the class.

Contrary to some of the other imdb users' comments, CITY OF LOST SOULS is one of Takashi Miike's most entertaining films. While not possessing quite the same intensity or shock value of other Miike masterpieces like DEAD OR ALIVE, CITY...nevertheless is fastmoving, balances comic book tall tale surrealism expertly with plenty of violence, sick humor as well as the doomed love story -- what more could you ask? It is NOT the run of the mill generic, mediocre, forgettable action film that most great action film directors are turning out these days. And it involves you with the characters (a multi-ethnic melting pot -- which, as astounding as it may seem to some incredulous viewers, is what major Japanese urban centers are like in this day and age -- by the way, Brazil, home country of lead halfbreed character,Mario, has one of the largest Japanese immigrant populations in the world). If you enjoy Miike, don't miss this. It's his most romantic film (!) without sacrificing any of the blood, the dark, dark humor or bizarre imagery we've come to expect from this unpredictable genius.

This little gem is a solo Miike film. No sequels and not much publicity, the movie oozes with style and the action is brilliantly choreographed. The idea of Japan being filled with immigrants, a midget brushing his teeth with cocaine, animated cockfights - all examples of Takashi Miike's very vivid imagination. The story is to do with a Brazilian guy who falls in love with the sister of a Chinese mafia boss who disagrees with their relationship.the Brazilian, however, will not let the love of his life go for no-one. Like an ultra violent version of Romeo and Juliet with foul toilet gags. another Miike great

8 out of 10

What can I say... Takashi Miike is one whose movies I enjoy more and more these days and The City Of Lost Souls isn't an exception. The piece itself is about a Brazilian protagonist and his girlfriend, trying their best to cross the border from Japan to Taiwan. They stumble upon trouble on the way, interfering with Yakuza's business and the outcome becomes a quite fast-paced roller-coaster action with violence, punchlines, and, I must add that there's also a great load of comedy here.

Anyone expecting hardcore violence throughout the entire piece may get disappointed. If you got some distance though and are open for hybrid stuff then this piece won't disappoint you. It awesome and funny, with a great mixture between the raw and cold violent scenes and the funny, surprising scenes of comedy. The language mix between Brazilian Portugese, Mandarin and Japanese is just a great additional bonus.

Takashi Miike's City of Lost Souls (also known as Hazard City, 2000) is very different due to its multi nation cast which includes Russians, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese and some others. The protagonist is Mario who is a Japanese/Brazilian who has beautiful Chinese girlfriend Kei who he frees in the outrageous beginning of the movie from some immigration system. Then they try to get out of Japan, but before they can, they have to deal with crazy Yakuza members, Mario's ex-girlfriend and her little girl and irritating radio host. This film reminds distantly of Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels so that gives a clue how much things happen in this film; you're right, a lot.

This is one wild ride to experience and even though it's not the director's masterpiece, it's still very interesting film and personal to say the least. The film is full of details to be found and crazy ideas, and Takashi is definitely among the most interesting directors of today. There are long takes without edits, weird and crazy camera angles (the toilet!), wild action scenes, CGI and some outrageous gags mostly towards some Hollywood blockbusters like The Matrix. The cockfight scene is totally unbelievable and I'd like to know what do the Wachowsky brothers think about this film! The very menacing "blade" effect at the end is again very personal and the kind of crazy idea one could expect from this director and Japanese cinema in general. The violence and action is very comic book like and thus not too shocking nor disturbing and that's not even the purpose. Fudoh (1995) is far more serious film and very masterful piece of Yakuza genre and alongside Audition (1999), it is Takashi's masterpiece.

City of Lost Souls raises some interesting topics mostly about different races and how we after all are very similar no matter what "race" or nation we belong to. All the characters are more or less tragicomic and show that there's absolutely no culture or person in the world who could be described as "perfect" or without flaws; people in City of Lost Souls are selfish, stupid, violent and proud of themselves so these are exactly the same things which plague every human being in the world. These things are not necessarily active in every case, but they're still there "un-active" and waiting for some stimulation to become active because, in my opinion, they belong to human nature, whether we wanted to accept it or not. City of Lost Souls tells many thins about us humans, but it tells them with little like tongue in cheek and with plenty of humor and lightening elements and so the film becomes even more interesting. The same case is with Mario Bava's slasher classic Bay of Blood aka Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971), which is a horror film on one level, but ends up being a hilarious satire and black comedy during the end, and the final scene in Bava's film is very memorable and, in a way, little similar to Takashi's film's end and how and why Kei and Mario end up like that.

City of Lost Souls is very easy to watch many times due to its creative content and over-the-top personal director, who hopefully manages to make more interesting films for many years to come. It is ridiculous but also sad how many just think this is some non-sense director whose films are so good just because of their often strong violence and other shock elements. Takashi Miike is another great talent in the growing list of Japanese talents, and his films are far more than many manage to understand and see.

8/10