2 out of 5

Director: Takashi Miike

While Miike’s “Like a Dragon” is very well shot – crisp colors, typically excellent layout for the action scenes – and well acted (The main character does “stoic” just right, the teens are a good combination of goofy and serious, the kid is played intelligently, the crazy bad guy is a wicked crazy bad guy), there’s just something about this that keeps it from coming together as a cohesive whole. And perhaps, this time, the source material is to blame, Like a Dragon being based on the “Yakuza” PS2 video game. Having not played said game, I’m wondering if I’m missing out on several “tributes” that would have helped me to tune into the movie moreso. Instead, I felt like an outside observer, and the movie, right from the start, felt like several ideas not disjointedly strung together, but just happening concurrently without any real “Wow” factor as to why they’re being shot in the same film.