Dead or Alive: Final

I guess it's for the best that this Dead or Alive is the final one, because it's not great. Though to be honest, I feel like this whole trilogy is one where only a single film is good. I didn't love the first one, dug the second, and then found this third one a bit tedious.

I thought it would have a little something going for it thanks to the sci-fi elements, but you forget it's set 300+ years in the future for the most part; it's really just a few establishing shots where it feels futuristic. Otherwise, Miike just slaps a yellow filter over all the outdoor scenes Breaking Bad-style and calls it a day.

The action is so-so. At least it's short. And I laughed a few times at the saxophone guy. If there's one reason to watch the movie, it's the saxophone guy. He doesn't have anything on the saxophone guy from The Lost Boys (who does, to be fair), but he's still amusing.

In the last of a trilogy, Riki Takeuchi and Sho Aikawa are once again on the opposite ends of the spectrum, as they were in the first DOA, after being the best of friends in the second one. Riki is a cop searching for his son being held by a gang whom drifter Sho is a part of. Even though, if you think about it and put yourself in Miike's flow of logic, this ending film is inevitable in it's actions, it's still the less of the three. Of course no Takashi Miike film is totally without merit and such is the case here. There are a few setpeices that make it worthwhile, but the poetry I usually find in a Miike film is not found here (at least in the amounts that I usually expect from this director)

My Grade: C-

OK, this doesn't compare to the explosive tempo of the first part's opening sequence; nor to its visual shock value; nor, for that matter, to the melancholic suspense of the second installment. No, it's surprisingly and refreshingly different (apart, of course, from the two main actors). The tongue-in-cheek futuristic scenario drives the characters towards each other across genres and languages with an almost gravitational force. The moment of impact-conclusion is your choice of: a)Shakespearean metaphor of life and humanity in a cartoon costume; b)sublimation of violence into homo-erotics; c)humorous detonation of an impossible buildup. Everything up to then is even less unequivocal.

Highly recommended to indiscriminate movie buffs who don't mind following foie gras with a hot dog; caution to those with more refined palates.

Picks up again where part 2 ended with a summary and the end did remind you of the best parts of part 1 and 2 but this taking place in the future also takes the movie further away from the original script then ever.

The end scene is again one you will have a WTF feeling and the part were they are some kind of robots just didn't work for me. Again, as in the other two reviews this leans the best towards Yatterman (2009). But on the other hand we do have more martial art fightings then in the other entries. And the fact that girls are involved takes it also to another dimension. Still, not gory or creepy like most of Miiki's flicks. For me the best entry in the franchise but still not my cup of tea.

Gore 1/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 2/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

This was a surprise - I was expecting something along the lines of the original DOA, not having seen any of the sequels. What you actually get is a slowish, rather beautiful, enigmatic science fiction film, rather like a Philip K Dick novel in that its central themes are love and the problem of how to be human in a mechanical world.

The film borrows the notion of 'replicants' from Blade Runner (I can't remember if they were called that in PKD's source novel) but takes the idea further than that highly over-rated film, bringing us characters who don't realise that they're replicants battling replicants who are becoming human, ending with a strange metal-morphosis straight out of 'Tetsuo'. The story moves along smoothly but never really kicks into high gear. We're in 2346, in Yokohama, where the gay Mayor Wu has made the consumption of a birth control drug that destroys love a compulsory act. Babies born due to defiance of the law are destoyed, Herod-style. Riki Takeuchi (who is getting a bit porky these days!) is Wu's enforcer.

Puzzlingly, he has a small son. He goes into action against some revolutionaries and has all of his most cherished illusions destroyed...

Visually, the film is quite lovely, even though it seems to have been made (as per usual with Takashi) very speedily. It also seems to have been shot on some kind of video process, which doesn't hold up well on the big screen but won't bother anybody watching it at home.

The ending is unfathomable even by Takashi's standards, and rather abrupt. Still, there's nobody else like him...