Nihon kuroshakai

This was a much more character-driven storyline than one might expect from Miike, and very nicely done, although it doesn't exactly score huge points for originality. We have the hooker with the heart of gold, and the usual tale of three disaffected youths trying to better their lot in life, only to fall into a life of crime that leads to disaster. But all of the characters are still sympathetic, and Miike's way of framing his story against the real sense of disconnection that his Chinese characters feel living in Japan is effective (even if American viewers might only pick it out after having a critic more savvy in Asian societal dynamics explain it first). This is also the most gorgeously shot Miike film I think I've seen, rich with deeply saturated and highly stylized colors. 8/10 from me.

Three young delinquents strive to do something with their respective lives, hopping on a train to Tokyo. Dan Li from XX: Beautiful Beast plays a hooker who tricks the young naive men getting away with their many. Karma's a bitch though and her pimp beats her up for having too much money. After a run-in with a truly sadistic john, she runs into the threesome yet again, but she's more susceptible to go along with their various plans. This film, the third and last in Takashi Miike's thematically linked 'Black Society trilogy' combines the feel of the first two. And though I find it head and shoulders above "Shinjuku Triad Society", I don't feel that it was quite strong as "Black Rain", due to the story seeming to be all over the place.

My Grade: B-

DVD Extras: An EXTREMELY informative Commentary by Tom Mes (the guy really knows his stuff); 2 interviews with Takashi Miike; Yasushi Shimamura interview; Artwork; Bio/Filmograhies; and a theatrical Trailer

Ley Lines is the third installment in the Triad Society trilogy, and like the others this is a (almost) serious film. It revolves around a group of outsiders (sound familiar?) trying to survive in the rough Osaka neighborhood. The movie has a very nostalgic atmosphere and since it revolves around the yakuza world, there are a couple of "Miike-highlights" in this one, however without compromising the atmosphere or tone of the film. So like Shinjuku Triad Society this one is sort of a mix between the serious and insane, and a great movie to boot.

8/10

It's strange: while I would probably much rather watch one of the more insane and, by virtue of reputation, more popular works repeatedly from Takashi Miike like Ichi the Killer or Visitor Q, a film like Ley Lines or Graveyard of Honor are probably technically better made "films", and is a wonderful but harsh reminder of how dedicated an artist Miike can be with the right material. Ley Lines is dark and depressing and about alienation and filmed often with a detached and unflinching eye on the plight of its young Chinese outsiders. It's also at times, not too unusually for Miike, strange and random and violent and with bits of deranged sex (here, as in other Japanese films, blurred out amusingly with blue lightning). I knew watching it I should've found some of the choices Miike made almost too detached or too pretentious or too stark with its depiction of some kind of reality. But by the end, I didn't care, in a sense.

That sense really has to do with connection with the bulk of the director's stylistic choices and the characters who with only a little development appear fully realized (or at least sympathetic as the lost and tortured souls of this story). It's about three Chinese guys who leave their blasé suburban lives and go to Tokyo, where they're soon robbed blind by a prostitute. Ironically, and in what is at first irony and then becomes a minor tragedy, the prostitute's Chinese currency doesn't fare at all with her nasty pimp and her other call duties are ugly at best and revolting (or just plain twisted underground crap) at worst, and she ends up back with them by an odd twist of fate. The Chinese youths go through some unsuccessful motions, like selling an ether-esquire drug, before one decides that it's time to leave this dreadful Tokyo landscape: Brazil. A heist is plotted, and executed, but with (somewhat) typical fatalistic results.

Miike seems to be experimenting, but at times in subtle gestures with the camera and lighting that suggest perhaps his own questioning of himself and his skills as opposed to just what the script requires. It's an exhilarating mix-and-match; early on we get that rushing bravura of the variety where we get put into the rush and vibrancy of youth with the camera tracking unevenly along as they ride bikes or gliding in a long take across the train station into the train car. Then, in Tokyo, sometimes a shot will just last a while on something and Miike won't cut if something violent or action-like is happening right in the next room (in these instances the cut-away to a close-up, or the emphasis on leaving a spot, becomes paramount). And last by not least Miike tries a red filter in the bulk of the frame, adding some crazy but always interesting effect to scenes like the one kid running through the streets to get back to his friend whom somehow he knows is beat up, or in the scenes towards the end (not to mention that very random but affecting moments with that man in the underground room requesting stories from Shanghai girls- very specifically those girls- and a fish somehow makes its way into the inter-cutting of a story).

On top of this, Miike's actors, most of whom I've never seen much of before with only one (Shoi Aikawa) I can recognize immediately, are all top shelf talents seemingly without doing much most of the time. It's after the heist, of course, that their chops are tested even more, and it's hard not to get caught up emotionally or feel frazzled as the one kid goes on about childhood memories and his mother in the back of the car. Somehow against all of the possible pit-falls of being ironically showy with his attempts at depicting these alienated people and the dregs of society (the real criminals here are go-for-broke evil people, including an oddball African) Miike makes the themes and ideas stand out excellently. In the 'art-film' sensibility, in fact, his compositions are incredible, and his control of fluctuating mood matches that of something out of the French new-wave, comparisons to Bande a part not-withstanding.

So, in short, don't watch it if you're expecting a Dead-or-Alive or a Gozu. This is serious film-making about tragic and lost souls, with only some (chilling) slices of the wild-man Japanese director we all know and love in some circles.

A trio of Japanese youths of Chinese descent escape their semi-rural upbringing and relocate to Shinjuku, a special ward in Tokyo, where they befriend a troubled Shanghai prostitute and fall foul of a local crime syndicate.

Like many of Miike's works, including the two previous "Black Society Trilogy" entries, the film examines the underbelly of respectable Japanese society and the problems of assimilation faced by non-ethnically Japanese people in Japan. Although it may not be easy for some Western (American) audiences to understand, the diversity between Chinese and Japanese cultures is great, and not always compatible.

What is interesting about this film, as opposed to the first two in the trilogy, is the relatively low level that these criminals are involved in. Rather than top-notch assassins or anything so glamorous, the story involves the dealing of toluene. For those who do not know, toluene is essentially paint thinner. So these "drug dealers" are little more than pushers of chemicals that anyone could inhale (for free) at any time, if they were so desperate for a high.

This film is noted as the "most accomplished" of the trilogy, and indeed it does seem to have the most polish. Maybe not as well-paced as "Rainy Dog" or with the impressive music of "Shinjuku Triad Society". but definitely a film with apparently higher production values. Perhaps not surprisingly, "Ley Lines" was Miike's final film before breaking into international stardom with "Audition" (1999).

As with the other two films of the trilogy, Arrow Video has Tom Mes providing a feature-length audio commentary. It is not as informative as it could be, with Mes often commenting on the plot (which should be self-evident). Those really interested in Mes' thoughts should seek out his book "Agitator", now available in a second edition. This disc does have a few bonus features, as well, that help us get inside the head of prolific filmmaker Miike. We have new interviews with Miike himself, as well as with actor Show Aikawa.