DEAD OR ALIVE is a 1999 Yakuza fable from Takashi Miike, this time feeling more like a Miike film than his earlier efforts like SHINJUKU TRIAD SOCIETY. That's because it benefits from an absolutely crazy opening and absolutely crazy ending, full of the madcap editing, grotesquery, bad taste antics, and extreme violence that the Miike of AUDITON and ICHI THE KILLER is best known for. Sadly, the middle part of this film is more like his subdued earlier Yakuza tales, following bad characters around as they do bad things, but the unlikeable characters and lack of incident made me more inclined to nod off than anything else. The larger-than-life Riki Takeuchi, of DEADLY OUTLAW: REKKA fame, plays his usual slick mobster, but it's only the energy at the outset and climax that keeps this one alive. Two sequels followed.

In Japan, after a massacre of Japanese and Chinese gangsters, the tough and persistent Detective Jojima (Sho Aikawa) is in charge of the investigations, while dealing with a personal family problem. His daughter needs to be submitted to a surgery and he needs to raise twenty millions yens urgently. He finds that the Chinese descendant Ryuichi (Riki Takeuchi) has associated to a Taiwanese drug dealer and is eliminating the competition. In the end, their confrontation becomes a personal issue for both.

"Dead or Alive: Hanzaicha" is a hypnotically bizarre, insane, sick and violent police story. The fast paced beginning is absolutely crazy, like a video-clip of unexplained violence. Takeshi Miike does not develop well the characters, with the exception of the ambiguous Jojima and the ambitious Ryuichi. He intends to shock the audiences with repulsive scenes, like for example the anal sex with a homosexual and with a dog, almost explicit oral sex, abusive use of drugs, perversions, sadism, drowning in feces and blood shed. The result of this madness is like a modern western-spaghetti, with the death of all characters. I liked this film, but it is only recommended for very specific audiences. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Morrer ou Viver" ("To Die or To Live")

A yakuza of Chinese descent and a Japanese cop each wage their own war against the Japanese mafia. But they are destined to meet. Their encounter will change the world.

Right off the bat, we get a crazy opening sequence, culminating in a clown and a naked circus act. The film is notable for Takashi Miike's characteristic scenes of ultra-violence and perversity, which come casually littered throughout. Most notoriously, an "enema bath" scene which is juxtaposed with an existential soliloquy. But even that opening suggests something insane and frantic, with one gangster even snorting an impossibly long line of cocaine.

Although Miike already had made gangster films, and Japan had a long history of making films in the genre, this one had an unusual beginning: it was inspired by "Heat", from the casting of two major J-Video stars to the meeting up in the middle of the film. Are this film's stars on the level of Pacino and DeNiro? Of course not, but the parallel is there.

What may be most interesting from a critical point of view is the ethnic aspect, which reflects on the deep history of Japanese-Chinese relations. This comes up again and again in the Black Society Trilogy, but no less so here. As Tom Mes says, this is Miike's "most overt statement on ethnic and cultural rootlessness." The idea that a Chinese-Japanese man may look Chinese or Japanese but is neither Chinese nor Japanese is very much entwined with that specific region. There simply is no equivalent in the United States. A Mexican-American is not rejected by society, for example. As the character sums up, "We're really not anything."

This really seems to be the crux of the film, and may perhaps be a story of ethnicity disguised as a gangster tale. We find that the one mother's grave is in a swamp, showing just how disrespectful society was towards her. Tom Mes says the characters "are forced to dwell on the fringes of society", literally in the swamp. The 2017 Arrow Blu-ray is an improvement over previous releases and now stands as the definitive home release. Miike expert Tom Mes is again tapped to provide insightful commentary. We also have new interviews with writer-producer Toshiki Kimura, actor Show Aikawa and actor Riki Takeuchi. There are also archival features. Arrow has not packed part two and three with as many features, but the box set as a whole is wonderful (and the interviews with Aikawa and Takeuchi can really apply to any of the three films).