It wasn’t until 2005
that, to my joy, I discovered the works of Takashi Miike. These were the days
of dvd; and with Miike, very often dvd-r. It began with Audition (1999) and Ichi the
Killer (2001), which are still his only masterpieces. Both of those films
are perfect and deserve their own essays if I were to do justice in describing
them. And Ichi the Killer has always
been one of my favorite movies of all time. But what of the rest? There’s a lot
to see. And I’ve spent many years going through them. Even just recently going
back to the video store—Miike is the strongest argument in favor of the
vanishing video rental house vs. online streaming—I was floored and amazed by
my first time seeing Graveyard of Honor
(2002).
Graveyard
of Honor is a bleak nihilist tale of an exiled Yakuza disintegrating into
oblivion and the woman he takes with him—themes familiar to Miike’s work. Like Audition, Graveyard of Honor establishes a serious dramatic tone and holds
it. This is a strength of Miike: his body of work ranges from pitch black
serious drama (typically embodied in the genres of crime or horror) to zany,
ludicrous B and even children’s movies (even
at the opposite end of this spectrum again there are crime and horror entries).
The last decade also marks Jeremy Thomas
coming on board as a producer for some Miike films. Thomas’ name has always
caught my attention because of what projects it’s been attached to: Bad Timing (1980, Nicolas Roeg), Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983,
Nagisa Ôshima), Eureka (1983, Roeg), The Hit (1984, Stephen Frears), Insignificance (1984, Roeg), The Last Emperor (1987, Bernardo
Bertolucci), The Sheltering Sky
(1990, Bertolucci), and Naked Lunch (1991,
David Cronenberg) are but a few.
Thomas has been the producer on Miike’s Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011)—my first
time seeing one of Miike’s films in a theater and in 3D (of course the joke
being that most of the movie is slow long scenes of dialogue in zen gardens
with no real reason for shooting in the format?), Blade of the Immortal (2017), and First Love (2019). And for the time being not only has Thomas been
collaborating on prestige Miike projects, but also ones that have received theatrical
distribution here in the US.
First
Love is advertised as an action/love story about a boxer and a girl
(apology if that’s being heteronormative with my nouns) with some stolen drugs
on the run from the yakuza. This not only sounds like run of the mill Miike
subject matter, but worried me as a premise similar to so many other True Romance types that it might not
have even been worth my time. But was I glad that I didn’t miss the opportunity to
see this in a theater.
While I will admit First Love comes nowhere near the genius of Ichi the Killer or Audition,
it maintains a consistent dramatic tone with excellent pacing and is genuinely suspenseful.
And it also, in its own way, continuously defied my expectations. So, without
spoiling anything, I really can’t say much else about the plot.
The ensemble cast is the strongest part of
First Love. The two teen star-crossed
lovers the film centers around, again being vague to avoid spoilers, kind of
exist apart from the dozen or so Rogue’s gallery of underworld figures that
populate the narrative. The ensemble is so perfect because just as I began to
realize how much I’d fallen in love with all of them, I also realized how there
were so many but not too many. And okay, when the credits roll at the end, over
the text there are portraits of each character and it made me giddy smiling at
whatever magic made them all so individually entertaining and memorable.
In order of my personal favorites I’ll
just really quick mention a few. Seeking revenge against the perpetrators of an
attack on her dealer boyfriend, JULIE is a volatile force of exceedingly
menacing rage with an indomitable charm who’s
delightful every time she’s on screen. And in Miike’s dark world she
faces the threat of danger from a Chinese thug who demands her at gunpoint to
get naked, “bottoms off only,” which results in her spending nearly the whole
movie in knit wool booty shorts, barefoot, and wielding the biggest crowbar
they make. Then there’s ONE-ARMED WANG, who I’ll resist describing—yeah those
two easily.
And Ichi the Killer himself Nao Ōmori
stars as a narcotics cop with a Beatles mop who carries the movie with a
performance that early on, in rumpled trench coat, really establishes the crime
genre with his weathered veteran who’s lived in this world long before we
arrive on the scene.
Maybe it’s just me but I feel like there’s
a kind of Yojimbo-Fistful of Dollars
thing (something that’s derivative of something that was actually inspired by
it, does that make sense?) goin’ on where First
Love’s female lead MONICA feels like The
World of Kanako (2014, Tetsuya Nakashima), which felt like it was trying to
imitate Miike in the first place.
So First
Love isn’t as insane as other Miike, but it’s exceptionally well executed.
It’s like a late work of his displaying maturity and the proficiency of his
craft. And though it lacks the disturbing sexual violence of Ichi the Killer or Dead or Alive (1999, Miike), that’s fine. I mean Miike has charted
some truly deranged territory, that he’s proven, but First Love feels a little more friendly towards a wider audience.
But it does have Miike’s trademark Japanese absurdist cutesy fun in a few bits.
For instance, what has to be the film’s most memorable moment: let’s just say a
small robot puppy, an elderly woman knocked unconscious, candles on a birthday
cake, and I’ll leave it at that.
Another quality that keeps me coming back
to anything Miike is his eye for filming Japanese urban locations (and how often he does).
And as settings for his Yakuza movies, these spots are vital. In First Love though there’re also a lot of
scenes shot with a straw filter gel over the fixtures—basically a yellow cast
over a shot, like in the boxing ring, the restaurant, the Triad lamp shop
hideout, the hospital ct scan, etc… Again, I’m no Miike scholar (but they exist,
i.e. Tom Mes) but it’s worth mentioning the Triad’s role in First Love because so many of Miike’s
films depict Triads in Japan or Yakuza exiled in China—The Bird People in China (1998, Miike)—or similar variants.
In closing, as a huge fan of dark movies, in particular the crime subgenre of gangster movies, and having praise for
Takashi Miike as one of the most endlessly fun and thought provoking master
filmmakers whose work I’ve ever come across, I have to say I was surprised and
thankful at how enjoyable First Love
is.
