9/9/15

Cannes Buzz: YAKUZA APOCALYPSE

Upon hearing about a yakuza movie that featured vampires AND a man in a giant fuzzy frog suit, I think I blacked out for a few seconds because it didn't seem possible that a movie so perfect could exist. But don't just trust my blind excitement, check out what some folks post-Cannes had to say.



From Manuel de Laylet at Quiet Earth 

Where it gets really interesting is that this is only the base canvas upon which many things will pile upon, adding nonsense to absurdity while still maintaining a certain kind of logic. A drunken one, but logic nonetheless.

It really makes one wonder about the brainstorming sessions. I'm leaning on a combination of Dadaist "pick up words at random in the dictionary" and actual heavy drinking. Yet, despite the whole twisted fairy tale emerging quite rapidly in the settings, the whole manages to still be a Yakuza movie with all the tropes of the genre. And the maestria of Miike is to perfectly blend everything into something that's new, interesting and will surprise you.

Read the rest of the review here

From Jessica Kiang at Indiewire 

Taking place in that part of your imagination that ruled your storytelling capacity before narrative logic, realism, and cause/effect psychology came along, the film is an insane headrush of the most disposable, nonsensical, whacked-out genre bliss you're likely to have. In fact while several rows of Cannes critics spent a lot of the running time between snorts of laughter stealing sidelong glances at each other in a "don't tell on me, my editor thinks I'm at the Jia Zhang-ke movie" kind of way, it oddly earns its slot on the Croisette just for going for broke on so many levels. It may be a hugely tacky, cartoony balloon pit of a film, but when every single element is dialled up to eleven and you can't go thirty seconds without another three-way face-off between OTT, OMG and WTF, it starts to achieve a maximalist artistry that almost feels avant-garde. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Read the rest of the review here!

YAKUZA APOCALYPSE screens: 
Fri, Sept 18, 11:59 PM RYERSON
Sat, Sept 19, 3:00 PM SCOTIABANK 2

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