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After watching “Silver”, I was actually wondering if Miike have reached his nadir with this film, and whether his collaborations with Hisao Maki could turn out even worse. “Waru” provided an answer to both questions.

The once more paper-thin script is based on a manga by Hisao Maki and revolves around Himuro, an expert martial artist who fights enemies with a bokken, and his boss, Sarashima, whom he has formed a bond with during their common stay in prison. The two of them are targeted by a rival yakuza gang named Kyokuto. The leaders of the faction are obsessed with their targets, and have assigned one of their henchmen to this goal, who ends up with an eyeball gouged after his first failed attempts. The rest of the movie actually revolvesaround these repeated assassination efforts that result in various, mostly absurd action scenes, while a number of flashbacks introduce Himuro’s story,...

The fact that Miike made this film the same year as “Ley Lines“, “Audition” and “Dead or Alive” may come as a complete surprise initially, but once one looks at the credits, the reason will come out: Hisao Maki, the “nemesis” of Miike’s quality is once more in charge of the script, and as usual, the result is quite bad.

The paper thin story revolves around Jun Shirogane, an ample-bosomed wrestler and champion of karate who is recruited by Minamida, a secret agent who happens to be an ex-lover, in order to fight criminals outside the law. In order to so while undercover, she joins a female wrestlers troupe (where she takes the name Silver), who eventually travel to the area her first target is located: Nancy Otori, a dominatrix who has enslaver men in power with her S&m tricks. The clash between the two women is inevitable,...