-THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS-
Miike Takashi, once again, has surprised everyone. He has created a sequel that has nothing to do with its predecessor. The main characters are still played by the same actors, Aikawa So and Takeuchi Riki, but their roles are very different. Here they play long separated boyhood friends who meet again when Takeuchi assassinates a racketeer Aikawa has been hired to shoot. Wanted by the Japanese Yakuza and the Chinese Triad they returned to their hometown, an island in the South of Japan. There, they meet another long time friend Kohei, played Endo Kenichi, who is now married. Through flashbacks we get to know about their childhood, which was spent in the local orphanage run by Japanese Christian priest. Contact with the present children of the orphanage makes them take the decision of going back to the main island and work as professional killers. The money they will get will be used to buy vaccines for the children in the Third World.
There are only a couple of references to the first part. One happens when Aikawa, surrounded by Chinese gangsters, pulls out a brick from his back. The other during a play for the children of the orphanage where Aikawa, dressed up as a kappa (a mythical Japanese creature, a hybrid between a man and a tortoise) has a cyborg arm. These scenes recall the amazing ending of DOA.
Compared to its predecessor DOA 2: birds is quite a light film, to Miike Takashi's standards, in its dealing of violence. Violence, Miike Takashi's style, doesn't appear until the second half of the film. Takashi has become a cult figure for taking violence to extremes and mixing it with dark humour. In Europe he has become immensely popular thanks to films like Audition, the mention Dead Alive and pretty soon Ichi the Killer, which I am sure will become a cult film soon. Even though Miike Takashi has said in many interviews he doesn't give much thought to his films that doesn't mean that they are just purely entertainment. What many seem to overlook, maybe due to their fascination with violence, is that Miike Takashi's films contain some interesting themes, recognising the existence of certain attitudes. For example attitudes towards sex. In DOA was bestiality (actually the making of those sort of films), Shinjuku Triad Society abounds in gay sex, Ichi the Killer and Audition deal with sadomasochism. In DOA 2: Birds we get a quick glimpse at necrophilia. Takashi acknowledges the existence of these sexual practices without criticising them whether perverse, sexist or politically incorrect
Whereas the beginning of DOA is a relentless bombardment of images of drugs sex and violence DOA 2: BIRDS opts for a milder opening. Tsukamoto Shinya uses Chinese and Japanese (Mild Seven) packets of cigarettes to dramatise the struggle between Chinese and Japanese gangs. Tsukamoto crushes cigarettes representing gangsters being mowed down. That was certainly a blow to those who expected an opening similar to DOA. It is very funny though.
It is already known that Takashi likes challenging audiences and DOA 2, as said earlier, is a good example. Another challenging sequence is the above mentioned children's play which is intercut with shots of a fight between Chinese and Japanese gangs, this time for real. The play, even tough for children, is sexually explicit but absolutely hilarious too. The crosscutting between the fight and the play is so fast paced that you find yourself laughing at Aikawa displaying his penis-torch or Takeuchi, dressed up as lion, masturbating at the same as heads are chopped off and rolling on the floor or a dead woman being raped. Takashi seems to be teasing the audience as they realise they are laughing, and cannot stop, at the carnage on the screen. This makes it a very uncomfortable sequence to watch but very clever too.
Miike Takashi also seems to question the action of the hero when they decide to help children in the Third World and their recently gained status of angels (another Takashi's surprises in the film). Takeuchi vomits blood continually. The more he kills the more he vomits. To save children they have to kill gangsters (Aisakawa at one point says that the world is better off without them) who were once children too. This is done in a brilliant sequence at the end of the film. There is a showdown on a rooftop between Aikawa and Takeuchi and three gunmen. Both heroes, badly injured, are lying on the ground and see how the 3 gunmen changed into children pointing guns at them. Takeuchi stills has the strength to shot them death. The scene ends with a shot of five children laying dead on the rooftop covered in blood. This is a brilliant, persuasive, sad and poetic metaphor of why there should not be any killing for any reason.
Miike Takashi's films are not just entertaining but are loaded with ideas, which might no be fully developed due to his attitude to his material, but are nevertheless quite interesting and challenging.
Miike Takashi, once again, has surprised everyone. He has created a sequel that has nothing to do with its predecessor. The main characters are still played by the same actors, Aikawa So and Takeuchi Riki, but their roles are very different. Here they play long separated boyhood friends who meet again when Takeuchi assassinates a racketeer Aikawa has been hired to shoot. Wanted by the Japanese Yakuza and the Chinese Triad they returned to their hometown, an island in the South of Japan. There, they meet another long time friend Kohei, played Endo Kenichi, who is now married. Through flashbacks we get to know about their childhood, which was spent in the local orphanage run by Japanese Christian priest. Contact with the present children of the orphanage makes them take the decision of going back to the main island and work as professional killers. The money they will get will be used to buy vaccines for the children in the Third World.
There are only a couple of references to the first part. One happens when Aikawa, surrounded by Chinese gangsters, pulls out a brick from his back. The other during a play for the children of the orphanage where Aikawa, dressed up as a kappa (a mythical Japanese creature, a hybrid between a man and a tortoise) has a cyborg arm. These scenes recall the amazing ending of DOA.
Compared to its predecessor DOA 2: birds is quite a light film, to Miike Takashi's standards, in its dealing of violence. Violence, Miike Takashi's style, doesn't appear until the second half of the film. Takashi has become a cult figure for taking violence to extremes and mixing it with dark humour. In Europe he has become immensely popular thanks to films like Audition, the mention Dead Alive and pretty soon Ichi the Killer, which I am sure will become a cult film soon. Even though Miike Takashi has said in many interviews he doesn't give much thought to his films that doesn't mean that they are just purely entertainment. What many seem to overlook, maybe due to their fascination with violence, is that Miike Takashi's films contain some interesting themes, recognising the existence of certain attitudes. For example attitudes towards sex. In DOA was bestiality (actually the making of those sort of films), Shinjuku Triad Society abounds in gay sex, Ichi the Killer and Audition deal with sadomasochism. In DOA 2: Birds we get a quick glimpse at necrophilia. Takashi acknowledges the existence of these sexual practices without criticising them whether perverse, sexist or politically incorrect
Whereas the beginning of DOA is a relentless bombardment of images of drugs sex and violence DOA 2: BIRDS opts for a milder opening. Tsukamoto Shinya uses Chinese and Japanese (Mild Seven) packets of cigarettes to dramatise the struggle between Chinese and Japanese gangs. Tsukamoto crushes cigarettes representing gangsters being mowed down. That was certainly a blow to those who expected an opening similar to DOA. It is very funny though.
It is already known that Takashi likes challenging audiences and DOA 2, as said earlier, is a good example. Another challenging sequence is the above mentioned children's play which is intercut with shots of a fight between Chinese and Japanese gangs, this time for real. The play, even tough for children, is sexually explicit but absolutely hilarious too. The crosscutting between the fight and the play is so fast paced that you find yourself laughing at Aikawa displaying his penis-torch or Takeuchi, dressed up as lion, masturbating at the same as heads are chopped off and rolling on the floor or a dead woman being raped. Takashi seems to be teasing the audience as they realise they are laughing, and cannot stop, at the carnage on the screen. This makes it a very uncomfortable sequence to watch but very clever too.
Miike Takashi also seems to question the action of the hero when they decide to help children in the Third World and their recently gained status of angels (another Takashi's surprises in the film). Takeuchi vomits blood continually. The more he kills the more he vomits. To save children they have to kill gangsters (Aisakawa at one point says that the world is better off without them) who were once children too. This is done in a brilliant sequence at the end of the film. There is a showdown on a rooftop between Aikawa and Takeuchi and three gunmen. Both heroes, badly injured, are lying on the ground and see how the 3 gunmen changed into children pointing guns at them. Takeuchi stills has the strength to shot them death. The scene ends with a shot of five children laying dead on the rooftop covered in blood. This is a brilliant, persuasive, sad and poetic metaphor of why there should not be any killing for any reason.
Miike Takashi's films are not just entertaining but are loaded with ideas, which might no be fully developed due to his attitude to his material, but are nevertheless quite interesting and challenging.