Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

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.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

chaos-rampant Who said only Americans had the right to remake, defile or reinterpret, their crime classics? By adding a new 40-minute third act on Kinji Fukasaku's original 1975 film Takashi Miike firmly leans towards the second option. A reinterpetation faithful in spirit and gritty hardboiled realism to the original yet still as much a Miike film as anything else he's done, this reflected in the Japanese title of the movie ('New' Graveyard of Honor), in itself perhaps a tribute to Fukasaku's sequel series 'New' Battles Without Honor and Humanity, and the numerous gonzo stylistic flashes that fully complement the hand-held hyperkinetic style Fukasaku pioneered and which Miike here reintroduces, not in an attempt to ape the original film and not to the extent that Fukasaku used that style nor with the same deftness, but as a visual technique Miike makes his own for the duration of the film.As with the original film, the emphasis here is not on a Scarface-like rags-to-riches arch but on downfall, one long unbroken fall from grace, an ode to self-destruction and alienation as only the Japanese know how to do them. The brooding yakuza protagonist finds himself in a vicious endless cycle of violence as meaningless as the catalyst that kicked it into motion (a two-hour visit at the dentist by his boss) and there's no bottom or depth low enough for him to sink to.Miike follows all this in a sombre distanced way, allowing the brutal stabbings and shootings to take place without either glorifying or shying away from them, this helped to a good degree by a languid jazzy score and a lack of depth or dimension to the supporting characters or indeed the protagonist. We don't know these people. We don't know any more about the protagonist after two hours than we did after he first stops a yakuza hit-man by breaking a chair on his head. He goes about killing people and shooting dope, stopping only long enough to rape his girlfriend or signal to the cops that he's out of bullets.Miike being Miike, the movie is still crazy and OTT, as though he doesn't want us to take it anymore serious than we need to. I'm a big fan of yakuza pictures and Miike's Graveyard remake ranks highly among them, quite possibly the best of the several he's done. More than two hours long, the movie feels epic without ever calling attention to itself as such. Miike is not doing THE GODFATHER any more than he's doing SCARFACE. Curiously for a remake and especially compared to slick Hollywood gangster movies or quirky crimedies, Graveyard is original above all else. If I have a problem with it, is only in the hard edge of the video look on which Miike (probably for reasons of budget) insists on shooting, and that 15 minutes could've been trimmed for tightness.

LooyCyphr If Japan is "perfect", how does "imperfection" look like? The protagonist in this movie embodies exactly that. Which takes away a lot of the "Scarface"-like thriller elements. There is a story about a guy stepping up in a mafia environment, but his stoic anti-will, the fact he hurts EVERYone - helpers, supporters, lovers and foes - is meant to be allegorically political.It's stated somewhere and in fact, there's some few scenes that appear very illogical. Not so, if you watch the movies "the right way".Movie is calm, depressing, melancholic, bloody painful, sometimes crazy (in one scene he shoots at everyone: police, bypassers etc., then going "SORRY, OUTTA AMMO!" and delivers himself).Good, disturbing, mature Miike-movie. Not as cartoonish as most of his films.

kuuzo This is one movie that needs to be released in the West, it is a hardcore dark violent drama, not the typical cartoony Miike. This is probably one of the better Miike movies I've seen, no bizarre cartoon violence or strange events, a straight up yakuza crime violence extravaganza, and apparently a remake of a 1975 movie of the same name. Definitely better than the sort of dragging Araburu Tamashitachi. The lead character Ishimatsu is played by Kishitani Goro, the bad guy from "Returner". In an interview on the DVD, Miike said he wanted to make a movie about a man who didn't learn to be a Yakuza by becoming a Yakuza, but who was born that way... The main character is BAD, far worse than "Ichi the Killer's" Kakihara. Whereas Kakihara is a sort of good-natured amoral sado-masochist, Ishimatsu is a bad natured insane sociopathic drug addict killer rapist. Lots of corpses in this one, men, women, doesn't matter to Ishimatsu. Even more corpses than Ichi the killer or Dead or Alive, and some real violent and realistic knife kills and handgun assassinations, pipe beatings, and other fun. Not for people who shy away from realistic violence and sadism.

antiheroripper Most of Miike's yakuza movies include alot of humor and over the top gore, in which I love. I was sort of expecting that with this movie and had my hopes up high, but I was introduced to a new style of Yakuza movie.Ishimatsu is a dishwasher at a resturaunt who saves the life of a Yakuza boss when a assassin was ordered to kill him at Ishimatsu's resturaunt. Ishimatsu is let into the family at a high rank and but he isn't what was expected. He starts p***ing people off in the family by starting a little gang-war, and after theres a settlment between the two gangs, they are all trying to get rid of Ishimatsu. He also gets pretty wound up with heroin.Alot of character develoupment in this movie. The movie has a low tone but glossy color that sets and really good atmosphere with a slow jazz soundtrack.The blood in this movie isnt very abundent but the violence is strong a realistic. Not very many bloodsprays like in most of Miike's movies, but you dont really look for that because IMHO this movie is so stylish without the need of strong blood or gore.It doesnt seem like to many people like this movie but when I got done watching this movie I felt really good like I have never felt after a movie.