Deadly Outlaw: Rekka

DEADLY OUTLAW: REKKA is a rare misfire from the usually interesting Takashi Miike, who can typically be relied upon from making outrageously entertaining movies. This is a standard Yakuza movie, featuring a low rent thug who decides to go on an odyssey of revenge, yet despite a few moments of surrealism and violence you can't really tell it's a Miike film at all.

Instead it has more in common with low budget art-house fare, featuring interchangeable characters and some padded scenes of characters wandering the streets aimlessly at night. Oh, there's bound to be a brutal fight scene or execution around the next corner, but there isn't anything that makes you care about what's going on. Okay, I don't watch a Miike film for the characterisation, but at least ICHI THE KILLER had tons of incident and AUDITION's slow build worked when matched with THAT ending.

This one's predictable in the extreme, I couldn't care less about the characters, and the whole 'stone face' type of acting is just a bit dull. Miike tries to spice things up with a sex scene here and a mutilation there, but it isn't enough; for much of the running time, I was simply bored. DEADLY OUTLAW: REKKA does have the same kind of hustle and vibe as the early gangster films of Beat Takeshi, but it lacks their finesse and raw power. Attempts to make it feel like an old-fashioned grindhouse movie of the 1970s don't really gel either; instead this movie is both slight and forgettable.

Seemingly modeled after DEAD OR ALIVE, starting off with a stylistical hodge podge of slow-mo gunfights and paranoid posturing and sizzling in the finale with a fair share of comic-book outrageousness, Rekka succeeds as a movie not for being ultraviolent or particularly graphic (it is neither by Miike standards - although still violent enough to raise a public outcry if it was the work of a mainstream American director), not because yakuza underlings get shot full of holes or Riki Takeuchi scowls like a bulldog as he shoots rocket launchers in the middle of crowded streets (DOA homage anyone?), not for the sound and fury, but for the moments in between. In that respect, Rekka is antithetical to DOA. Whereas DOA dragged through a drab and lifeless middle act to arrive at an exciting conclusion, Rekka sustains itself through moments of quietude and intimacy. In between the outbursts of violence, Miike gives us life as lived. Takeuchi's friend giving him advice on his hair dye. The glances between Takeuchi and his Korean girlfriend. The dingy eateries, night clubs and neon-lit streets - Miike prowling Fukasaku's stampin' grounds half a century after the patriarch of the yakuza film first pictured a different kind of postwar Japan.

In the end, Rekka works so well as a movie because Miike restrains the child within him eager to shock and impress and embraces the dramatist who observes the small moments of life. The plot is mostly forgettable, something about the son of a yakuza boss going on a spree to avenge the death of his father while a gangland conspiracy festers behind and a war between the different fractions is about to break out, and Takeuchi in the leading role scowls a little too much for my liking. But overall, this is as good a yakuza flick as I've seen from Miike, violent, funny, occasionally beautiful, imaginatively conceived but hastily executed (as with most Miike films), a thoroughbred Miike flick bearing all his trademarks, one aimed at both the heart and the gut. Not a masterpiece of any kind but a worthwhile movie.

Those of you that are used to American-style movies, don't watch this because you're probably going to be bored. People, like me, who are used to weird Japanese movie-styles will mildly enjoy this movie. The editing is very strange, sometimes you get the impression that your DVD has skipped, the sound is also weird in some places, I can't explain exactly what's wrong with it but watch this film and you'll know what I mean.

I recently watched "Imprint". That's an episode in the "Masters Of Horror"-series directed by Takashi Miike. THAT's what I call a strong and violent film. It was awesome!

Don't expect too much and you will be entertained. But not as much as you expected. A decent watch. Nothing to keep.

Like many people I was first turned onto the works of the great director Takashi Miike in the movie "Ichi the killer". After viewing that film I was instantly hooked to his take no prisoners style. Takashi Miike is a man that truly stretches the boundaries of violence and audacity into an art form. Several months later I was surprised to see "Deadly Outlaw Rekka" sitting on the shelves of my local Best Buy. Due to the rarity of Takashi Miike's films I bought it without hesitation, and I'm glad I did. Japanese film star Riki Takuechi (or as i like to call him, cool hair guy from "Dead or Alive") plays the roll of Kunisada, a grizzly yakuza hell bent on revenge for the death of his boss. As the story unfolds the audience becomes ensnared in webs of love, betrayal, sorrow, and revenge. Though lacking in the unbridled violence that originally drew me in to these kind of movies the gritty and often times zany style of Takashi Miike remains ever present. Overall "Deadly Outlaw Rekka" is a fantastic film that is a must have for fans of Takashi Miike or just really great action films and worthy addition to any movie collection!

Miike shows us in this film his outstanding gift for the yakuza genre from the first minute to the last. This time he adds a soundtrack from the Flower Traveling Band, Satori, a Doom Metal key album from 1971 that makes those master shoots, of perfect color, shine without stopping during the cinematographic experience he proposes. His characters flow before the viewer like a handful of impossible to stop Japanese scarfaces. Shinjuku, mafia, escorts, magic and Rock and Roll !!