Overlooked Film(maker)s of the Decade: Takashi Miike
posted by The Joe
I’m going through my favorite films of the year to figure out a cohesive list, and while Takashi Miike’s God’s Puzzle just barely won’t make it, I ran across the awesome kind-of spoiler scene below where the earth is going to be swallowed by a black hole, and the main character must save the day with rock and roll. Those untranslated lyrics? He’s singing about quantum physics. Yeah.
This got me thinking about how totally screwed Takashi Miike has been on Best Films of the Decade lists everywhere, considering there’s around 40 films of his to choose from. Ichi the Killer has one of cinema’s finest-ever villains in Tadanobu Asano’s Kakihara, Visitor Q is one of the most inventive uses of digital cinema, Happiness of the Katakuris is the decade’s greatest musical, and I consider City of Lost Souls to be the greatest of Miike’s 70+ films.
The list goes on, from great yakuza films like Dead or Alive 2, Yakuza Demon, and Deadly Outlaw Rekka, to the shocking MPD Psycho series, to the grand fantasy Great Yokai War, to the experimental Big Bang Love Juvenile A, to the brutal and still-unreleased-in-America Scars of the Sun. All of these and far more are going woefully overlooked.
Screw that. Takashi Miike, you crazy prolific bastard, I hope you don’t feel underappreciated. Modern cinema wouldn’t be nearly as fun without you.
God’s Puzzle is Awesome