OMG Horror

From Germany to Japan, this time for Foreign Fear Friday we celebrate the work of j-horror auteur Takashi Miike.  Born on August 24, 1960 in Yao, Osaka, Japan – the 48 year old has been groomed for the world of cinema since his early days in attendance of Yokohama Vocational School of Broadcast and Film, despite his claims of rarely going to class.  He did graduate from the school, doing do under the staunch tutelage of hailed visionary filmmaker Shohei Imamura (the founder and Dean).  Early in his creative career, Miike’s work lingered in the realm of TV and V-cinema (straight to video), an avenue he often returns to as a way to enjoy the artistic freedom that major studio censorship rarely encourages.  Despite tinkering in a barrage of genres on early on (a skill that would persist in the coming years), themes of extreme violence and graphic perversion have remained steady throughout. 

Miike’s first stint of real acclaim came by way in what is known as the “Black Society Trilogy” – a trio of films that included Shinjuku Triad Society, Rainy Dog, and Ley Lines.  The attention and notoriety these films garnered enabled Miike to operate under larger budgets and higher profile movies.  In 1999, Miike bombarded international audiences with Audition, an absolutely slow burning romantic horror nightmare that has a jaw dropping last half hour.  The flick is disturbing on many, many levels – and has a visual style as jarring as the subject matter itself.  I mean, when you have a woman feeding a bound captive vomit from a doggy bowl, you know you’re bordering on foul tastelessness.  What’s ironic about all of this of course is the fact that Miike’s directorial range has shown his ability to also make children’s films and light-hearted fare such as Zebraman and The Great Yokai War.  What’s perhaps even more impressive than Miike’s cinematic range is his level of prolificacy.  The dude has made well over 70 films, pumping out 2 or 3 a year. 

Personally, Takashi Miike is quite the enigma.  The man is rarely seen publicly or during interviews without his trademark sunglasses on his face.  He covets the work of David Lynch, David Cronenberg and Paul Verhoeven - often referring to Starship Troopers as his favorite movie.  He speaks not a word of English, yet agreed to appear in Eli Roth’s Hostel and perform his part in English.  And considering how internationally popular his films are, it’s a wonder when he claims that he doesn’t “think about an audience, I don’t think about what makes them happy, because there’s no way for me to know.  (Traditionalists) think of the audience as a mass, but in fact every person in the audience is different.  So entertainment for everyone doesn’t exist.”  Well whatever the man believes, his workload execution is diversified enough to satiate most worldwide filmgoers.  The man is doing something right! 

But it would be the 2001 release of Ichi the Killer that proved most polemic for Miike.  The flick, about a sadomasochistic Yakuza enforcer, incorporated so much graphic violence and exorbitant morbidity that it was disallowed to be released in Britain by the British Board of Film Classification.  For those who have not seen the manga adaptation, Ichi the Killer features scenes of such extreme grue as man being gorged in half, split from the groin to head, another involving a severed face that gorily slides down a wall.  Another features a man cold ripping another man’s arm clear off with only his bare hands.  To press issues further, when the flick debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival, barf bags were passed out to the audience in attendance of the midnight screening (a publicity gimmick, it turned out).  Miike has also confided that real semen was used in the opening sequence close-up shot, as well as increasing the number of punches required to maim a prostitute from 3 to 15 because he couldn’t stand the actress playing the part.  Dedicated to the work I’d say is an understatement!

Since the early part of the decade, Miike has continued to work at a yeoman’s pace.  In 2005, his episode of horror anthology Masters of Horror, entitled Imprint, was so brutal it was never officially released in the U.S. on the Showtime network – and despite being shown in a number of countered worldwide, wouldn’t see the light in America until the 2006 DVD release of the series.  You know it’s a fucked up episode of Buckethead dedicated a song to Miike entitled Imprint on his 2007 album “Peppers Ghost.”   Miike has also seen his work butchered by American remakes, notably One Missed Call – starring the adorable Shannyn Sossamon.  Even now, in the early part of 2009, Miike has already put out 2 films, albeit more tethered to the action genre.  The man knows no bounds!

That’s it for the month of February, as always, be sure to check in next time for another look at Foreign Fear Friday!