Definitive Directors – Takashi Miike
by Stephanie Scaife
If there is one thing that we can all agree on about Takashi Miike it’s that he is an astonishingly prolific and varied filmmaker. He has consistently been churning out three or four films a year since the early 90’s, although admittedly his consistency for quality may be debatable. In 2010 for example he directed his most critically acclaimed film to date, 13 Assassins, alongside Zebraman 2: Attack on Zebra City the follow up to his 2004 film Zebraman, about a school teacher turned superhero (whom you may have guessed dresses in a zebra costume) who battles against a homicidal pop star. But these contradictions are nothing new, Takashi Miike has made everything from zombie musical The Happiness of the Katakuris; to the bizarre yakuza crime drama Gozu; to children’s action adventure movie Ninja Kids!!! Proving that there really isn’t anything that this man can’t do, although one thing is without a doubt, regardless of if he’s making an ultra-violent horror or a comedy he’ll approach his subject matter with so much aplomb and gusto that the end result will always be unquestionably and uniquely his.
Although the two films I have chosen were released over a decade ago, Takashi Miike is as prolific as ever today and his influences are numerous. Along with the likes of Ringu, Miike’s films are directly responsible for the international popularity of J-horror and his influence can be seen in the work of contemporary western filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino and Eli Roth.
Audition (Ôdishon)
Although Audition was his 35th film in the space of 9 years it was his first to receive a cinematic release outside of his native Japan and it was also the film that introduced me to Takashi Miike. I was actually very lucky the first time I saw this movie; I went in completely blind on the basis of a recommendation. I had absolutely no idea what it was about or what was going to happen. I wasn’t even aware that it was a horror film, a friend had just told me that I should definitely see it. So I went along to The Prince Charles cinema in central London, which at the time was a little run down repertory cinema that provided the perfect environment in which to experience this dark and sadistic film. Audition also has the honour of being the first and only film that I have seen as an adult that properly shit me up, at the time it was the most extreme film I’d subjected myself to and, especially as I wasn’t expecting it to be, I was genuinely shocked and slightly shaken after my first viewing. In the following decade of course we’ve had the likes of Irreversible, A Serbian Film, Martyrs etc. but nothing since has equalled the initial effect that Audition had on me. I’d say that my desensitisation to shocking onscreen images is in large part due to Takashi Miike, a dubious honour I’m sure.
Based on the novel of the same name by Ryu Murakami and with a relatively simple premise, Audition is about Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) a wealthy widower with a teenage son, his wife having passed away many years previously. After some encouragement from his son Aoyama finally decides that the time has come to remarry. Aoyama’s business partner and film producer friend Yasuhisa Yoshikawa (Jun Kunimura) concocts a plan whereby they will hold fake auditions for a film, when in reality they will be secretly auditioning a potential wife for Aoyama. Whilst short-listing applicants one in particular stands out for Aoyama, that of Asami Yamazaki (Eihi Shina), a beautiful young woman whose plans of becoming a ballerina were shattered after sustaining a serious injury. Aoyama soon becomes infatuated with Asami and after just a few dates he decides to propose marriage. However, it soon becomes apparent that Asami may not entirely be the meek and submissive young woman that he thinks his is in love with.
My favourite thing about Audition, especially if you’re watching it for the first time, is that it is really a slow build; it lulls you into a false sense of security. For the first 45 minutes or so I thought it was a comedy melodrama with a little satire thrown in on Japanese stereotypes of women. Then there is the scene where Aoyama finally picks up the phone and calls Asami. It is perhaps one of the most singularly sinister and unexpected scenes that I’ve ever seen in a film. It creates a fantastic sense of unease and the audience is left in no doubt that all is not what it seems with the frail and beautiful Asami.
After their short period of courting and Aoyama having decided that Asami is the woman for him they go away for the weekend to the coast, where Aoyama intends to propose marriage. After pledging to love only her, at her insistence, the couple consummate their relationship. However upon awakening the next morning Aoyama discovers that Asami has disappeared during the night. He soon panics and comes to realise that he knew very little about her despite his infatuation and intent to marry her. After returning home he beings a desperate search for her, becoming increasingly paranoid and confused as he discovers that something may be very wrong with Asami, again highlighting his naiveté and lack of understanding of the object of his affections, as well as perhaps women in general.
At this point the tone and style of the film changes dramatically into a hallucinatory nightmare of extreme, horrific and occasionally ridiculous images with scenes of torture, mutilation and degradation that are absolutely not for the faint of heart. As with most films of this ilk, there were reports from screenings of audience members leaving in their droves during a particularly harrowing scene involving piano wire and the removal of a foot.
Audition has at once been hailed as a feminist film and lauded as misogynistic. I don’t see it as being one or the other, instead part of what I find so interesting about the film is that there are valid arguments for both sides of the argument. Aoyama is a chauvinist and by staging the fake film audition as a means to find a new wife he becomes a deplorable character, not to mention the enthusiasm he has for Asami; a seemingly meek and submissive woman more than half his age. So it could be argued that he gets his just desserts in the end, when the tables are turned and he discovers (or at least vividly imagines, depending on your interpretation) that Asami is a violent sadist. She however is not entirely blameless, being that she equally as dishonest and deceptive as Aoyama. Not to mention the fact that she is clearly batshit insane.
Ichi the Killer
Arriving just 2 years after Audition (although Miike clocked up over ten films in this time) Ichi the Killer arrived and cemented his reputation in the west as a pioneer of the extreme. Based on the manga series by Hideo Yamamoto, Ichi the Killer is perhaps one of the only films I’ve seen that so wholly captures the frenetic energy and excesses of a manga comic in a live action film. From the music, to the characters and the way they dress to the unabashed ultra-violence and plot the veers without a moments notice from the terrifying to the ridiculous. In terms of style this is pretty far removed from Audition, although the core themes of sadomasochism and characters not being as the initially appear remain a constant theme between the two films.
Ichi the Killer centres around two vastly different and opposing characters, on the one side is Kakihara (Tadanobu Asano) a yakuza enforcer with extreme masochistic tendencies who is searching for his missing boss Anjo, and on the other we have Ichi (Nao Omori) a sadistic young man who has been brainwashed with false memories and is controlled by the ruthless Jijii (Shinya Ysukamoto), the head of a “cleaning” crew secretly pitting two opposing yakuza gangs against one another.
Not wanting to believe that Anjo is dead Kakihara embarks on a no holds barred mission to track down the men responsible for his disappearance, although their relationship is never explicitly implied to have been a sexual one, Kakihara’s dedication to his boss and the scars that he wears with pride indicate that they were involved in an extreme sadomasochistic relationship and Anjo’s death has left him with a gaping hole in his life nobody to fulfil his needs. This has then resulted in driving Kakihara into becoming the very sort of sadist that he so desires in a bid to gain information from those who give even the slightest hint of being involved in the disappearance of his master. Kakihara is a fantastic character, with his elaborate outfits and peroxide blonde hair; he is charismatic and unabashed and doesn’t think twice about cutting his own tongue off in a bid to appease an affiliate yakuza boss after over stepping his mark. This scene is in fact one of the most horrific and amusing sequences in the film, a perfectly balanced contradiction, the shot of Kakihara slicing his tongue off is unflinching and the camera doesn’t shy away for a second, only to then have the aghast viewer nervously laughing seconds later as he attempts to answer his mobile phone with his newly self inflicted mutilation.
Then we have Ichi, a shy, nervous young man who is virtually a recluse, often seen hiding under a blanket playing videogames alone. His captor Jijii has somehow instilled false memories into Ichi that have led him to believe that he was mercilessly bullied and was the witness to the gang rape of a school girl when he was a boy. Whenever Jijii wants Ichi to kill for him he convinces him that the target victim is one of the imagined bullies he so strongly believes to have been responsible for his torment.
Ichi dresses in a costume that resembles a superhero, with the number one emblazoned on the back and razor blades imbedded in the heels, which he uses to literally split his victims in half. Like Kakihara, through the actions of others this socially retarded young man is forced against his will to oppose his instincts in the name of doing what he believes must be done. Where Kakihara turns from masochist to sadist, Ichi turns from a weak minded victim into a perpetrator of excessive violence towards anyone who happens to get in his way. Each character’s internal conflict simmers to the surface and results in an unforgettable climax where neither gets what they bargained for.
Ichi the Killer is a frankly bizarre piece of work that is exhilarating to watch, it literally bombards you with excesses of every kind for its entire 120 minute running time. Although criticised for the violent content, particularly towards women, I feel what Miike does is not to moralise or castigate his audience but instead he invites them to question what it is they are watching and why it is that they would choose to do so. As with Audition this is a film that requires reflection and careful consideration, there is clearly a lot more going on beneath the surface than what you experience upon initial viewing; working as a parody of itself, the repetition of the excessive violence could be argued as a way to show it’s futility, certainly it pushes the boundaries as far as content goes, but by giving us such extreme and polarising characters we are forced to question our own boundaries. It really was unlike anything that had been seen before, and despite his many admirers nobody has come close to making anything quite like Ichi the Killer or Audition since.
Takashi Miike was responsible for upping the game as far as violent content is concerned, always managing to retain the balance between excessive and exploitative. Many will find his work distasteful or offensive, but his influence is undeniable. As a viewer and connoisseur of horror and extreme cinema I’d class Takashi Miike in a league of his own, a pioneer with a vision who is never afraid to push the envelope and this is precisely why he has been chosen as part of our ongoing Definitive Directors series.
