Polaris_DiB Miike's biggest genre flavoring is the Yakuza, usually approaching them from a surrealist or nihilist perspective (and, indeed, mostly both). This one goes the nihilist route but is a lot more loving and emotional. In the end, the trials of hyper-violent people results in nothing but destruction, but this time a strong sense of family is created.And family is what it's all about, in a much more direct and simple narrative way than the shock value of Visitor Q. The two "brothers" and their "boss" are immediately shown as an integral and caring nuclear family, complete with sunsets and Gothic music. The boss's wife at first seems distant from this nucleus, but as things develop she becomes more and more integral until she in fact becomes the cause with which motivates the drama. In terms of narrative film-making, this is definitely an example of Miike being able to make a straight-forward dramatic story with emotional emphasis beyond shock and sensation.There is also some interesting choices in the approach to violence, which is different from most of his other movies. Violence here is as expressionistic as always, but video effects and purposefully uneven audio distances the viewer from it and causes a very real cognitive dissonance--something he obviously did very purposefully and very well. It's amazing how one person can go and find so many different ways of portraying similar themes, changing them to fit the mood and tone of the movie. Yakuza Demon features some real masterful directing.One warning, though. For those of you, like me, who dislike chewing noises and the sounds of people eating (think the scene from Lord of the Rings), this movie can be a real exercise in patience. It's not just a minor nitpick as actually scenes of eating and talking at the same time fill up a good third of the playlength. Again I think this is purposeful and again I'm pretty sure it has to do with theme--a group of people subsistence surviving and trading money and fighting, with very little reason or power behind it and only a single unit that actually loves.--PolarisDiB

RainDogJr I'm a fan of Takashi Miike so basically every time I can buy or rent one of his works (I'm almost sure that, with the exception of the censored version of Ichi the Killer in festivals, none of his films had a theatrical run in my city) I don't miss the chance since is not that common to find a Miike film. At my local Blockbuster there aren't many Miike films, of course you can rent Ichi the Killer and Audition but apart of those titles there are just about 3 other films and 1 of them is already in my collection. I never heard or read something about Kikoku aka Yakuza Demon but for sure I really wanted to watch it. Yakuza Demon was released straight to video and certainly it is not one of Miike's very best but if you ask me it is a great film, I loved it and now it is a personal favourite of Miike. It is a simple Yakuza story, not as graphic as some others Miike films, very well acted, with some bizarre shoots and certainly once again Miike proves with it that the Japanese straight to video market is way different. I enjoyed it a lot, I was stick to the screen, I really like this well-made and simple crime films.In Yakuza Demon we have two rival Yakuza organizations: the Tendo Group (an organization with 15,000 men) and the Date family, each organization conformed by families. So we have the Muto family with Boss Muto, Seiji (very cool Riki Takeuchi) and Yoshi Okamoto, they are part of the Date family. During the beginning of a war between those two organizations Boss Muto is arrested, and he will spend two years in prison, just after he promised to the Date family that in order to pay his debts he would kill someone big of the Tendo Group. "You are way too cool, man", those are the last lines, of course according to the English subtitles from the DVD, of the movie and are words from a man of the Tendo Group to our protagonist, Seiji, just after he and his men killed him. After Boss Muto is arrested the name Seiji becomes an extremely well known name in the Yakuza world and obviously not for some childish actions, actually Seiji together with Yoshi (both know the other since long time ago and now are just like brothers) made what no one imagine, well I guess many though about that but just as a dream: they tried to kill the boss of the Tend Group, actually they were very close. This action has as a consequence the worst time of the Date family and now practically Seiji is alone with Yoshi not being secure in any place. There is not something complicated about the war, is easy since the Tendo Group is so much more powerful so the interesting things comes of course from Seiji. He was loyal to his boss and now he is replacing him, there's a great scene: Seiji just realized about the fact that the Muto family has been expelled from the Date family. They always thought that Boss Muto went to jail to avoid the obligation of paying his debts by killing someone of the Tendo Group but now Seiji is a demon, obviously he feels nothing but anger by knowing that his boss has been expelled and nobody will argue with him. Seiji did what his boss promised but with that he practically finished the date organization. And with Boss Muto we have the story that involves a woman, of course she will be the one who will suffer the most, she will suffer the killing of Boss Muto and the killing of Seiji, Yakuza Demon has a really great ending, there you have a man who killed finally without a gun, he and she are going for a new and different life, they may be through with the past but the past ain't through with them.

Simon Booth Takashi Miike has mostly made a career out of taking genre films and subverting them, by skewing, lampooning, exaggerating or thwarting their conventions. A goodly number of these films have been takes on the Yakuza genre, with the most famous being DEAD OR ALIVE - a punk rock Yakuza film that seems to pour scorn on the derivative nature of the genre. With KIKOKU he perhaps delivers the ultimate twist, by taking a story pretty similar to DEAD OR ALIVE (or DEADLY OUTLAW REKKA) and... filming it straight. Where his earlier films find new ways to approach their genre, or new stylistic techniques, KIKOKU plays pretty much like you'd expect any Yakuza film to do. The patented "Miike moments" are almost wholly absent. Is this a post-modern mockery, a parody of his own style, or could he just not be bothered anymore? Riki Takeuchi, man of 1000 grimaces, plays a Yakuza foot-soldier in a small gang, whose loyalty to his boss leads him to go on a seemingly suicidal mission of vengeance against a much larger rival gang. His initial successes cause such a commotion that his own group disown him & his boss to make peace, so then he is trapped in the middle of the two sides. Yes, it's a familiar tale :) Tom Mes suggests in the film notes that KIKOKU may be Miike's way of saying "goodbye" to the Yakuza genre... perhaps he's mined it as deep as it can go, and wants to move on to fresher things, so as his way of achieving closure he decided to make one last Yakuza film but do it in a respectful way. I don't know if there's any truth - his next film was GOZU after all, which is a Yakuza film at heart, but twisted into possibly the strangest form Miike has given it yet. Since then we've had a couple of horror films (the dire ONE MISSED CALL and his segment of THREE: EXTREMES), a Tokkusatsu film (ZEBRAMAN) and the bizarre sounding IZO which I'm really anticipating. But somehow I doubt Miike will be staying away from his Yakuza roots for all that long - I just hope his next Yakuza film is more creative than this one.5/10

Demogorgo This movie is a story of a small Yakuza gang who's boss finds himself in trouble after a money dispute with the other bosses in his crime family. After a rival family declares war on them, the boss soon finds himself in jail and under scrutiny. His two remaining underlings decide to advance their fledgling group in the family by destroying the rival society themselves, thus endangering their own outnumbered organization and alienating themselves from it.This was kind of an average gangster movie from Miike. There's nothing wrong with it, but there's nothing special about it either. It's very similar in feel to "Graveyard of Honor", but without the big message or depressive feel. For straight-to-video, it looks great. The blood and violence is not off-the-charts, but it is there. There are no big shocker parts or bizarre concepts like you might expect from this director.Look for a surprise alternate ending after the credits.