3 out of 5

Director: Takashi Miike

As can be seen in the reviews, and assumed of filmmaker Miike in general, Detective Story can be taken in a whole bunch of different ways, and believed to be a good or bad film depending on your view. Based on the cover, the description, and the slashers tag, this would seem to be a sleazy movie. And the script was aiming for such, probably, with a B-movie serial killer plot with an unconvincing twist and gory deaths. While Miike tosses some gore onto the movie (though much of it is blurred out), it seems that he took a look at the script and decided to shoot it as a bizarre comedy, playing some scenes seriously when needed but, overall, including all those off-kilter Miike touches – looking into the camera, abrupt edits, pee, and a final moment zinger. Theres also, perhaps experimentally, a very American style to some of the shots, particularly when introducing the lead character. So its another Miike experiement. More balanced in tone than many of his experiments, and definitely more watchable than some of his catalogue and thus acceptable for casual viewers, but this just seems to pass the time more than anything else.