4 out of 5

Directed by: Takashi Miike

A fascinating hybrid of Miike themes and a satisfying capper to the DOA ‘trilogy,’ watching the trio of movies in a row reminds me of something amazing I often overlook in Takashi’s flicks: the power of what’s not shown.  Like, I assume, many, I back-tracked into the director’s career via his films that’d earned him a gonzo tag, e.g. Audition, Ichii, Fudoh.  And while he does have a trademark childish sense of humor that pops up in even his most serious efforts (although the recent Arrow blu-ray release of the DOA set has an essay by ___ that dubs this as an extension of the ” ” movement, so that makes it sound smart), the amount of films in his catalogue that aren’t Ichii-level bonkers far outweighs those that are.  The Dead or Alive series is a pretty perfect capsule of this, with the unrepentant imagery and cartoonishness of the original followed by an incredibly restrained, and personal, ‘sequel,’ rounded out by Final, which steers somewhere between the two, with probably the most successful “plot” of the series and a wonderfully silly, reflective ending.  (Lots of ‘quotes’ and “quotes” in a Miike review…)  In each flick, the relative extremes of the settings or tone are tempered by Miike’s camera’s eye: what he deems it necessary to show us (or in the case of DOA, to dwell upon).  It’s a simple thing – as I’m not necessarily referring to whole scenes, rather small leading shots here and there that are part of an assumed film language – but it removes clutter from his movies, and in this instance, helps turn what might otherwise be flat tales of vengeance into multi-faceted things.

For Final, Show Aikawa and Riki Takeuchi are again initially pitted against one another: Show as a goes-his-own way ‘replicant’ robot, and Riki as an emotionless cop enforcer for the mayor (Richard Chen), in a future Yokohama in which over-population has caused breeding to be essentially outlawed, helped along via a pill handily shoveled to the masses by said mayor.  While the front-end of the pic chugs along dutifully, nabbing the Blade Runner reference and other post-apocalyptic nods and applying them to a viable low-budget actioner, the ‘slighty-off’ ante gets continually upped: Miike swishes his film with his beloved cultural divide, characters switching between Japanese and Cantonese and English freely, and the no-kid rule flipped to push an in-story homosexual agenda (said by the mayor to be the purest form of love).  The latter might very well have been part of the script, but playing with sexuality is a bit Miike loves, and he undoubtedly tweaked this aspect in his own fashion; Chen’s representation of the mayor is perfect: leering and cold-hearted, yet mixed with a seeming sincere appreciation for the object of his desire – a perpetually shirtless, sweaty, slim saxophone player, diagetically providing parts of a great Kōji Endō score.  The flick also plays loose with its whole replicant thing, something the flick eventually pokes fun at as things tick on.

Show falls in with some rebels, eventually crossing paths with Riki when the latter’s son is kidnapped by the rebel group.  Again, on the surface, DOA: Final uses this to stir the plot pot and bring our leads face to face, but a friendship that forms between Riki’s son and one of the rebel children gives the film opportunity to explore those basic bonds that are woven into most Miike movies, slipping, for a portion, into the more restrained fare of DOA 2.  But the film’s climax gleefully jumps right back to DOA madness, not only giving us a visual tie between the three flicks, but also ending on a laugh-out-loud concept that’s brilliantly on-the-nose stupid and yet thoughtful at the same time.

The film’s garish, yellow digital sheen comes via cinematographer Kazunari Tanaka, but it absolutely works in the film’s favor, giving it a you-can-taste-it layer of grime that makes the low-budget future feel right.  As with the prior film, some moments of script weeble-wobble prevent the flick from feeling seamless – in this case, a weird diversion between Show and rebel Jun (Josie Ho) that may have once been a subplot given more than the pointless few minutes it is – but the movie otherwise has the really odd, bent momentum that catches you off guard with its quieter moments.

Another affirmed Takashi classic.  Recommended to watch in sequence with the others.