Shin jingi no hakaba (2002)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Takashi Miike

Writers:

Goro Fujita (novel)
Shigenori Takechi (screenplay)

Release Date:

22 June 2002 (Japan)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Thriller

Plot:

A barkeeper saves a Yakuza boss' life and thus makes his way up in the organization. However his fear of nothing soon causes problems. |

Plot Keywords:

Yakuza | Remake | Stripper | Female Nudity | Based On Novel

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Narumi Arimori	...	Chieko Kikuta
Yoshiyuki Daichi	...	Yoshiyuki Ooshita
Hirotaro Honda	...	Correctional officer (as Hirotarô Honda)
Harumi Inoue	...	Yôko Imamura
Renji Ishibashi	...	Denji Yukawa
Goro Kishitani	...	Rikuo Ishimatsu (as Gorô Kishitani)
Takashi Miike	...	Restaurant gunman
Ryôsuke Miki	...	Kôzô Imamura
Yasukaze Motomiya	...	Kanemoto
Mikio Ôsawa	...	Masato Yoshikawa (as Mikio Oosawa)
Daisuke Ryu	...	Tadaaki Kuze (as Daisuke Ryuu)
Harumi Sone	...	Ryuuzô Fukui
Shun Sugata	...	Toshi Nishizaki
Tetsuro Tamba	...	Tetsuji Tokura (as Tetsurô Tanba)
Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi	...	Shigeru Hashida
Shingo Yamashiro	...	Shinobu Sawada
Shinji Yamashita	...	Masaru Narimura
Rikiya Yasuoka	...	Aoyama (as Rikiya)

Also Known As:

Graveyard of Honor (Japan: English title)
New Graveyard of Honor (International: English title) (literal title)

Runtime:

131 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Certification:

New Zealand:R18 | Germany:18 | Japan:R-15 | UK:18

Filming Locations:

Tokyo, Japan

Company:

Daiei Motion Picture Company

Movie Connections:

Featured in Yakuza Eiga, une histoire du cinéma yakuza (2008) (TV)

Strangely Boring and Derivative For Miike

This film, despite some thoughtful stuff in the final act, is strangely derivative of Takeshi Kitano (which isn't necessarily a good thing in my book). Much like Sonatine we've got a non-expressive, self-destructive protagonist who does some violent stuff while a repetitive low-rent jazz soundtrack warbles in the background. And the editing is sadistic - watch a guy slip around on ice for 45 seconds straight, watch a guy climb a rooftop ladder for 35 seconds, watch seemingly identical rape scenes, watch seemingly identical heroin usage scenes, and my personal favorite: watch the lead actor scowl into the camera over and over and over, blah blah blah. While there is no doubt that it is a Miike in the final analysis, I find it almost sacrilegious to see him borrowing so blatantly from the hack playbook of Beat Takeshi. He even put him in Izo, for cryin' out loud.