Review of Yakuza Apocalypse

Miike melds genres in this yakuza/vampire flick. This is certainly crazy, but I don't think it's one of Miike's better films. Hayato Ichihara stars as a yakuza henchman who sees his boss decapitated in front of him. The boss has a secret: he's a vampire. And before his head dies, he bites Ichihara on the neck and imparts his powers to him. With those powers (and the power to create more vampires), he looks for vengeance for his boss. Simple enough set-up, but there's a ton of other stuff packed into the film. A lot of that stuff is fun - particularly the late-film appearance of a giant green frog monster who kicks all kinds of butt - but none of it is very coherent. It feels like just weird stuff for the sake of weirdness. Still, there's enough here worth seeing that I'd recommend seeing it, particularly if you're a fan of Miike or just cult cinema. Yayan Ruhian, who starred in The Raid and its sequel, also stars (he also briefly appears in The Force Awakens, but at least here he gets to fight).