I'm a fan of Takashi Miike so basically every time I can buy or rent one of his works (I'm almost sure that, with the exception of the censored version of Ichi the Killer in festivals, none of his films had a theatrical run in my city) I don't miss the chance since is not that common to find a Miike film. At my local Blockbuster there aren't many Miike films, of course you can rent Ichi the Killer and Audition but apart of those titles there are just about 3 other films and 1 of them is already in my collection. I never heard or read something about Kikoku aka Yakuza Demon but for sure I really wanted to watch it. Yakuza Demon was released straight to video and certainly it is not one of Miike's very best but if you ask me it is a great film, I loved it and now it is a personal favourite of Miike. It is a simple Yakuza story, not as graphic as some others Miike films, very well acted, with some bizarre shoots and certainly once again Miike proves with it that the Japanese straight to video market is way different. I enjoyed it a lot, I was stick to the screen, I really like this well-made and simple crime films.In Yakuza Demon we have two rival Yakuza organizations: the Tendo Group (an organization with 15,000 men) and the Date family, each organization conformed by families. So we have the Muto family with Boss Muto, Seiji (very cool Riki Takeuchi) and Yoshi Okamoto, they are part of the Date family. During the beginning of a war between those two organizations Boss Muto is arrested, and he will spend two years in prison, just after he promised to the Date family that in order to pay his debts he would kill someone big of the Tendo Group. "You are way too cool, man", those are the last lines, of course according to the English subtitles from the DVD, of the movie and are words from a man of the Tendo Group to our protagonist, Seiji, just after he and his men killed him. After Boss Muto is arrested the name Seiji becomes an extremely well known name in the Yakuza world and obviously not for some childish actions, actually Seiji together with Yoshi (both know the other since long time ago and now are just like brothers) made what no one imagine, well I guess many though about that but just as a dream: they tried to kill the boss of the Tend Group, actually they were very close. This action has as a consequence the worst time of the Date family and now practically Seiji is alone with Yoshi not being secure in any place. There is not something complicated about the war, is easy since the Tendo Group is so much more powerful so the interesting things comes of course from Seiji. He was loyal to his boss and now he is replacing him, there's a great scene: Seiji just realized about the fact that the Muto family has been expelled from the Date family. They always thought that Boss Muto went to jail to avoid the obligation of paying his debts by killing someone of the Tendo Group but now Seiji is a demon, obviously he feels nothing but anger by knowing that his boss has been expelled and nobody will argue with him. Seiji did what his boss promised but with that he practically finished the date organization. And with Boss Muto we have the story that involves a woman, of course she will be the one who will suffer the most, she will suffer the killing of Boss Muto and the killing of Seiji, Yakuza Demon has a really great ending, there you have a man who killed finally without a gun, he and she are going for a new and different life, they may be through with the past but the past ain't through with them.

Those who criticize this as a minor Miike films are missing the point of this film. This film should not be compared to the DEAD OR ALIVE films, ICHI THE KILLER or FUDOH or any of the hyper manga-style Miike film. Instead, KIKOKU draws from Miike's grittier, melancholic, more classic crime dramas like RAINY DOG, LEY LINES and BLUES HARP. In my opinion, Miike does this kind of film as well or better than the ones he best known for. These films are the ones that put Miike in the league with Kinji Fukasaku and possibly above Beat Takeshi -- and not really the manga ones.I like this kind of film because it is so pure -- so classic in its crime fatalism -- like a great American noir of the late 40s or 50s or a great French gangster flick from the 30s. Like the other films mentioned above, at the heart of this film is an unlikely love story which makes up the eye of the deadly hurricane that is Miike's take on the violent Yakuza underworld. On the surface the plot is very similar to DEADLY OUTLAW REKKA, but while DOR is fast and fun, KIKOKU is the doomed, tragic version of that film. It's a more serious film that should be taken seriously as one of Miike's best -- and one of Riki Takeuchi's best as well.

Takashi Miike has mostly made a career out of taking genre films and subverting them, by skewing, lampooning, exaggerating or thwarting their conventions. A goodly number of these films have been takes on the Yakuza genre, with the most famous being DEAD OR ALIVE - a punk rock Yakuza film that seems to pour scorn on the derivative nature of the genre. With KIKOKU he perhaps delivers the ultimate twist, by taking a story pretty similar to DEAD OR ALIVE (or DEADLY OUTLAW REKKA) and... filming it straight. Where his earlier films find new ways to approach their genre, or new stylistic techniques, KIKOKU plays pretty much like you'd expect any Yakuza film to do. The patented "Miike moments" are almost wholly absent. Is this a post-modern mockery, a parody of his own style, or could he just not be bothered anymore? Riki Takeuchi, man of 1000 grimaces, plays a Yakuza foot-soldier in a small gang, whose loyalty to his boss leads him to go on a seemingly suicidal mission of vengeance against a much larger rival gang. His initial successes cause such a commotion that his own group disown him & his boss to make peace, so then he is trapped in the middle of the two sides. Yes, it's a familiar tale :) Tom Mes suggests in the film notes that KIKOKU may be Miike's way of saying "goodbye" to the Yakuza genre... perhaps he's mined it as deep as it can go, and wants to move on to fresher things, so as his way of achieving closure he decided to make one last Yakuza film but do it in a respectful way. I don't know if there's any truth - his next film was GOZU after all, which is a Yakuza film at heart, but twisted into possibly the strangest form Miike has given it yet. Since then we've had a couple of horror films (the dire ONE MISSED CALL and his segment of THREE: EXTREMES), a Tokkusatsu film (ZEBRAMAN) and the bizarre sounding IZO which I'm really anticipating. But somehow I doubt Miike will be staying away from his Yakuza roots for all that long - I just hope his next Yakuza film is more creative than this one.5/10

This movie is a story of a small Yakuza gang who's boss finds himself in trouble after a money dispute with the other bosses in his crime family. After a rival family declares war on them, the boss soon finds himself in jail and under scrutiny. His two remaining underlings decide to advance their fledgling group in the family by destroying the rival society themselves, thus endangering their own outnumbered organization and alienating themselves from it.This was kind of an average gangster movie from Miike. There's nothing wrong with it, but there's nothing special about it either. It's very similar in feel to "Graveyard of Honor", but without the big message or depressive feel. For straight-to-video, it looks great. The blood and violence is not off-the-charts, but it is there. There are no big shocker parts or bizarre concepts like you might expect from this director.Look for a surprise alternate ending after the credits.