GRAVEYARD OF HONOR (Japan, 2002)



131 minutes, 35mm, in Japanese with English subtitles
Directed by: Takashi Miike
Starring: Goro Kishitani, Narimi Arimori, Tetsuro Tanba

Takashi Miike is the world's most amazing director, and his staggeringly relentless output is wildly varied. From gory thrillers, to vehicles for pop stars, to musicals, everything that comes rushing out of his bloody brain
bears a distinctive mark. But even for Miike, GRAVEYARD OF HONOR (shot in 2002, along with six other Miike movies) is a change of pace. The unsettling biography of a yakuza thug addicted to violence and not ready to go cold turkey, its long, hand-held takes allow the actors plenty of breathing room, and the film unfolds in real-life rhythms, like Cops with a heart of stone and a jet black soul.

Ishimatsu is a dishwasher who saves a yakuza boss from a gunman (played by Miike himself). The boss offers him a job and Ishimatsu figures, "Why not?" Bad move. Hooked on mayhem, unable to predict the easy-to-understand consequences of his nihilistic actions, on a path straight to hell and trying to take as many people with him as possible, Ishimatsu's addiction to the trigger destroys his enemies, his friends, and himself. If he's not jamming a spike into his devoted girlfriend's arm and pumping her full of china white, he's shambling into a karaoke bar and blowing away everyone he sees. He¹s either stinking up business deals, rolling around in his apartment and pumping bullets into the ceiling, or holding off an army of cops in his underwear. People would smile and patronizingly call him a loser if he wasn't heavily armed. Because he is, people smile and try to placate him, pay him, or get out of his way.

Ishimatsu is a feverish, deeply upsetting creation. And, unfortunately, Ishimatsu is real. Real-life gangster, Rikio Ishikawa, was the bloody scourge of post-war Japan and his memoirs provided inspiration for Kinji Fukasaku's 1975, GRAVEYARD OF HONOR, long considered a classic of the genre. Miike's new GRAVEYARD ignores Fukasaku's film and goes back to the novel for its inspiration, even while updating the action to the late 80's. But with the passing in 2002 of Director Fukasaku, the new GRAVEYARD takes on even more resonance; a loving epitaph carved on the gravestone of one of Japan's greatest directors, by Japan's bravest director.

Completely different than the over-the-top cartoon violence people associate with Miike, GRAVEYARD OF HONOR is gritty, harsh, hardcore - yet somehow all those words miss the mark. There's only one word for Miike's exploration of the deepest, darkest, sickest depths that a man addicted to violence will stoop to.

This movie is demonic.