Fairaher
The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
Ava-Grace Willis
Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.
Jonah Abbott
There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.
Graham Greene
As you can probably gather from the title, Full Metal Yakuza (1997) is one of director Takashi Miike's most polarising and defiantly idiosyncratic works. Essentially a straight to video project - produced at a time when the market for straight to video pictures in Japan was at its most financially successful - the film imaginatively blends together elements of the director's more iconic and eclectic Yakuza genre films, such as Osaka Tough Guys (1995) and Fudoh: The New Generation (1996), with elements of Paul Verhoeven's classic American science-fiction satire, Robocop (1987). As with the majority of Japanese V-cinema, Full Metal Yakuza offered Miike creative free reign; with explicit, over-the-top bloodshed and sexual violence interspersed with moments of black comedy, pathos, and continual references to old Hollywood monster movies, such as Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll. All of this is naturally delivered on a minuscule budget that seemingly left little room for convincing make-up effects, or indeed, CGI.Harsher critics of the film often cite such budgetary restrictions - as well as the absurd, almost farcical nature of the plot - as the defining factors for this films supposed failure and its irrelevance within the context of Miike's career. However, supporters of the film, such as myself and other such online admirers, tend to enjoy the film for these very same reasons; with the limited budget and obvious lo-fi quality of the effects adding to the overall enjoyment; with the film managing to encapsulate the very best qualities of low-budget film-making such as boldness, originality and imagination.However, having said that, this is very much a film of three distinct parts, and the enjoyment of each specific segment will obviously depend heavily upon the individual taste of the viewer. The first part is probably the easiest to appreciate, as it is the most dramatic of the three and the more focused, with none of the tongue-in-cheek humour or references to cult sci-fi cinema that will appear later. In some respects it brings to mind some of Miike's more routine, run-of-the-mill Yakuza/crime pictures, such as the aforementioned Osaka Tough Guys and the great Young Thugs: Nostalgia (1998), as well as somewhat pre-empting the style and tone of later films like Rainy Dog (1997), Ley Lines (1999) and Agitator (2001). As with Robocop itself, this first segment illustrates the rise and eventual fall of the central character (in this case, an inept Yakuza underling), as he attempts to protect his boss and mentor from a fatal double-cross carried out by his own men in conjunction with a rival gang. Its perhaps the most successful part of the film for most viewers as it features no low-tech special effects or attempts at obvious shock-value; instead, drawing us in through the characters and the strong performances from the likes of Tsuyoshi Ujiki, Takeshi Caesar and Koji Tsukamoto. The second half of the film is the more comical; referencing Frankenstein and the much alluded to Robocop, as a crazed scientist (played by Shinya Tsukamoto regular Tomorowo Taguchi) rebuilds our hero as a super-sleek cyborg, replete with a massively exaggerated penis! In this segment, Tsuyoshi must come to terms with his fate, as well as coming to terms with his new (and improved?) body; building up his strength, shooting skills and fighting ability in a hilarious montage, before going off to claim bloody revenge in the name of his slain master!Sub-textually, the appearance of Taguchi as the central creative figure of this "full metal yakuza" is interesting, in the sense that the film presents a similar thematic and philosophical ideology to that of Shinya Tsukamoto's cult classic, Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1988); in which a mild-mannered Tokyo salary-man finds himself inexplicably turning into a mass of wires, metal and steel (and must eventually struggle with the inevitably disturbing consequences)! The similarity is further stressed by the casting of Koji Tsukamoto, Shinya's younger brother. Obviously, Full Metal Yakuza presents these themes in a way that is completely different to Tsukamoto's dark, expressionistic art-drama; but clearly, the parallels are there and are exploited by Miike in a clear attempt to give a greater sense of meaning to the drama between satisfying his own more subversive impulses as a grand provocateur.The third part of the film is more interesting but also at odds with the more outré sequences of violence and revenge; reminding me of some of the more thoughtful and tender moments of films like Rainy Dog, The Bird People of China (1998) and Dead or Alive 2: Birds (2000). It also ties this film in with certain images and ideas presented in the later film, Dead or Alive: Final (2002), which also features a cyborg character struggling with the more humane intricacies of their existence in a slow and hypnotic, almost Takeshi Kitano inspired moment of surreal, seaside tranquillity.This particular segment of the film - bookended by scenes of rampaging revenge - is really the heart and soul of the story, and seems to be a conscious move on Miike's part to instil this very warped, very silly little pastiche shocker with a genuine sense of character; opening up further avenues of interpretation or simply giving us a brief moment to reflect on the violence and bloodshed that will continue through to the closing moments? Full Metal Yakuza definitely isn't "classic Miike", with the three disparate acts failing to make a fully consistent whole (feeling at times like three completely different films edited together), but it is certainly entertaining; filled to the brim with moments of humour, action, thought and disgust, as well as a whole host of imaginative and inspired sight-gags and set-pieces. As you would expect from any film by Takashi Miike, there are a number of fairly shocking images presented for laughs, including rape, necrophilia, dismemberment, torture and death, as well as an incredibly bizarre ending, which - when viewed within the context of the first forty-minutes - seems to belong to an entirely different film!
Infofreak
I've already seen Takashi Miike's 'Fudoh: The New Generation', 'Visitor Q' and 'Ichi The Killer' so I'm prepared for just about anything from this amazingly prolific and eclectic director. But as 'Full Metal Yakuza' is an early Miike movie, made with a small budget for the direct to video market, I expected it to be a throwaway action comedy with little evidence of Miike's future brilliance. However, much to my delight, it actually still managed to surprise me, and despite being a cheap riff on 'RoboCop' (one of my all time favourite movies) Miike doesn't play it safe, and you can see bits of 'Ichi the Killer' in there waiting to burst out. This was Miike's twentieth(!) movie give or take, and despite having already released his breakthrough film 'Fudoh' it was still a long way before he was to be discovered by Western movie buffs in a big way. Miike was mainly working in the direct to video market which at the time gave film makers a lot of creative freedom if they made low budget genre movies that were able to sell a few thousand copies. He certainly took advantage of that freedom as the movie mixes silly comedy, bloody fight scenes, tacky special effects and costumes with a brutal gang rape sequence which Hollywood action directors just couldn't have gotten away with. Miike says he wanted the audience to be confused in how they were supposed to react and I think he succeeds big time! There are a few familiar faces in the cast from other Miike movies and those by Beat Takeshi and Shinya Tsukamoto, but the star Tsuyoshi Ujiki was unfamiliar to me. In Japan he is best known as a rock star with Kodomo Band. Uliki plays Hagane a bumbling low level yakuza who is killed when he gets caught in an assassination attempt on his boss whom he worships. But in fact Hagane doesn't die, he is resurrected by an eccentric scientist who has created a new body for him made out of a combination of metal and spare parts supplied from his dead boss! The rest you just have to see to believe. Hagane is far from your typical Yazuza tough guy, and in many ways you can see his character as being a dummy run for Ichi. 'Full Metal Yakuza' isn't quite as amazing as 'Fudoh' or 'Ichi' but it's still pretty out there and highly recommended to fans of extreme Asian action.
UncleBobMartin
It is tiresome enough when so-called "professional" critics drag a film over the coals for not being an exact match to other work by the same director. It is oh-so-much worse when the same is done by amateurs who don't even know the full output of the filmmaker under this type of dissection.With splashy films like Ichi, the Dead or Alive series, and The Happiness of the Katokuris having reached these shores and found their audience, the smaller films have started to tag along. Visitor Q and Audition have been highly praised by many, but these low-budgeters were made after Miike had gotten his quirkiness shaped into a formula. A great formula, in my opinion, but a formula nonetheless.There are many more early films by Miike headed this way, and many of these, I suspect, will be much like Full Metal Yakuza -- stories told in a straight-up style with a view for pleasing an audience, rather than a cult.While it is no "American Cyborg," FMY is a rip-snortin' 100% straight-to-video exploitation venture by a skilled filmmaker who manages to more than meet the requirements of the genre. The story concerns a Yakuza who awakes from what had seemed to be certain death to find that he now has a body that is partially steel, partially his own, and partially made from the parts of his dead sempai...can you guess? Yes, we are going to have a revenge tale. And, as silly as it is, it's a lot less goofy (and will no doubt age better) than that overpraised pastiche of revenge tales, Kill Bill.Grab a six-pack, pop some corn, and forget about meaning while Uncle Takashi spins what is without doubt the best scifi Yakuza tale of the 20th Century.
Simon Booth
Takashi Miike may well be the savior of modern cinema - more than any other film maker I'm aware of, Miike keeps pushing the boundaries of the art form. He's also got a deliciously sick sense of humour.Full Metal Gokudo is an early Miike movie (with the rate he produces movies, even 5 years ago is a long way back in his career). It's a made for video ultra-cheapy, probably made in a couple of weeks for a few thousand yen. The basic premise is Robocop meets a Yakuza movie... producing the Full Metal Gokudo himself, a low ranking Yakuza gangster whose body is reanimated by a self-proclaimed genius scientist, to be a crime fighting superhero. Though things don't quite go according to his plans.Despite the very very low budget and terrible special effects, FMG contains buckets of that Miike imagination and intellect. Subtle, dark humour occasionally gives way to comic absurdity - and occasionally to something much darker and more disturbing. Nothing as sick as you will find in Ichi The Killer or Fudoh, but enough to trouble the more squeamish viewers no doubt. There's a little bit of a heart in the movie too though, for the viewer who can look past the gore and idiocy.Mostly though, FMG is just a silly comedy. It takes a bunch of mostly loathsome characters and puts them in a ridiculous situation, then has fun seeing how everybody reacts. It's a movie that could only have come from Japan, and probably only from Takashi Miike himself. The ultra low budget means its never going to get mainstream popularity, but it's the perfect material to become a lightweight cult classic.
