Takashi Miike's loose adaptation of the PS2 game "Yakuza" is definitely an odd duck. It defies most formula conventions and delivers a uniquely Miike experience. Reminiscent of City of Lost Souls before it and Crows Zero after it, Like A Dragon has as many laughs as it does bullets. Combining bombastic action with a violent sense of humor, the film almost seems to want you to hate it, but it's hard not to like what amounts to be one of the most twisted action comedies in recent memory. A gangster fresh out of jail, his bat-wielding and bugnuts crazy arch-nemesis, a lost little girl, two Bonnie and Clyde posers, a pair of idiot bank-robbers, a mysterious Korean hit-man and plenty of other characters inhabit one hot night in a fictional district of Tokyo with two missing women and ten billion yen at stake. If you're expecting a deathly serious action fest, you had better look elsewhere. Relying on vicious physical gags and some truly inspired comic timing, Miike mixes in dynamic camera-work with colorful imagery to continuously rebel against traditional action conventions. This is definitely not one of Miike's most profound works, but it is certainly one of his most undeniably fun.

I just read in another review for the movie, that this is based on the (somewhat) popular game "Yakuza" (a third installment of which is supposed to come out this year for the two next generation consoles). Since I haven't played the game, I can't tell you how accurate this adaptation is.If you're a Miike fan, than you don't need my review for an opinion. But if this is about to be your first Miike movie or you haven't heard of him, let me tell you, that his "style" (cheap and fast, that's why he makes quite a few movies every year) aren't everyones taste. They are somewhat original though and have many weird/strange ideas thrown into the mix. This is not different here and the movie is quite enjoyable in an almost sick kind of way. Not for the squeamish ... but then again, which Miike movie is for a sensible audience? Exactly!

With his flamboyant sense of film style, over-the-top action sequences, outrageous visual sight gags and genre-bending sensibilities, it is easy to see why Miike Takashi's films are so enjoyed by audiences, particularly those outside of Japan. Like his contemporaries Quentin Tarantino, Edgar Wright, Guillermo del Toro and Robert Rodriguez, Miike has really done a lot to invigorate the Japanese cinema and help make it more accessible by world audiences.Ryu Ga Gotoku (Like A Dragon) is a film that is pure Miike and covers many of his signature themes (Yakuza, innocence lost, bloodlust, cartoon violence and death).While it's generally a bad sign when a film is "based upon a video game", in this instance Sega's Playstation 2 game, Ryu Ga Gotoku (AKA: Yakuza). However the translation here is not all that far off the mark. Of course, it helps when the screenplay was adapted from a story written by acclaimed novelist Hase Seishu (Sleepless Town, City of Lost Souls).The story revolves around former Yakuza underling Kiryu Kazuma (Kitamura Kazuki), who has recently been released from prison after a lengthy incarceration, and is trying to piece his life together and distance himself from his Yakuza past. Along the way he encounters Haruka ("Natsuo"), a distressed young girl who is trying to find her lost mother (a former club hostess). Unfortunately Kiryu's problems slowly escalate as he is pursued by a former associate, the baseball bat-wielding psycho Majima Goro (Kishitani Goro) who has a grudge to settle with Kiryu.Kiryu's encounter with Goro's men in a Osaka convenience store inspire a couple of free-spirited teens, Satoru (Shioya Shun) and Yui(Saeko)into robbing area stores and using the money to pay off Yui's debts and to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.If things weren't confusing enough, a robbery is also taking place nearby where two gunmen are holding an entire bank hostage and have been tormenting the bank employees with their constant bickering.Other incidental characters include a nebbish gunrunner (Arakawa YosiYosi), a mysterious Korean assassin (Gong Yoo) and Nishikiyama, an Osaka Kingpin who has entered into a sinister alliance with North Korean militants and is holding over 10 Billion Yen in his fortress penthouse.The amount of male machismo and bare fisted brawling in the film is reminiscent of the Be-Bop High School movies and are every bit as cartoonish in their over-the-top violence. While the violence does not approach the sheer visceral horror of his past films like Koroshiya No Ichi (AKA: Ichi the Killer) or Gozu, there are moments where one just cringes at the body blows.Kitamura (Controller X in Godzilla: Final Wars) is an incredibly charismatic actor who definitely has the look and brawn to play the "Dragon of Dojima" Kiryu. He is your atypical hero type - silent and brooding with a "takumashi" (manly strength) that seems to be a prerequisite of Yakuza heroes.Kishitani (Returner, Shin Jingi No Hakaba) steals the show however as the manic Majima, a criminal with a unique flair for destructive mayhem and yet also has a strangely sinister charm about him. Unlike Kiryu, he has no honor and is not opposed to killing his own subordinates if the mood suits him. He is not much unlike Kakihara (Asano Tadanobu) in Miike's comic book Yakuza cult movie Koroshiya No Ichi but is thankfully not as vile a villain. If anything, he reminded me a lot of Tommy Lee Jones' "Harvey Two-Face" character in the disappointing Batman & Robin movie - comical in his outright villainy.Shioya Shun (Hurricanger Red in the Hurricanger Tokusatsu series) and Saeko (Backdancers!, NANA) are a bit wasted in their roles as Satoru and Yui, and their characters aren't really given much room to develop beyond their Bonnie and Clyde type roles.As mentioned the various fights border on the unrealistic side, possibly in keeping with the original video game. Both Kiryu and Majima often display varying degrees of almost superhuman endurance, stamina and strength in their battles. During the final fight between Kiryu and "final boss" Nishikiyama, the two start generating "auras" ("heat mode", in the game) when they fight giving off the impression that they aren't quite human. It almost takes on the "cinema of the absurd" when Kiryu goes into "Popeye" mode after drinking a special vitamin elixir that supercharges his abilities to finish of Nishikiyama.Ryu Ga Gotoku is still an enjoyable Yakuza action film with elements of fantasy and crime drama. While I would have preferred if Miike had just focused on Kiryu's story and thrown out the subplots involving the bank robbery, the Korean Assassin and Satoru and Yui's story, I guess the intention was to create a type of Pulp Fiction type ensemble piece. Unfortunately while it worked well in that movie, it does not work well here at all and just causes a lot of unnecessary confusion. Sometimes simplicity is really better.

Miike has proved to be one of the most versatile and reliably inventive directors of the last decade. He is no longer merely Japanese; his movies reach an ever-growing audience in Europe, America and elsewhere. Capably of churning out several films a year (owing to his background in the B-cinema of straight-to-video yakuza action variety), even the best of Miike's films have a sense of fleetingness - not to say hurriedness - to them. That is because, for Miike, more is more. Frugality be damned. The film under review is NOT one of his most polished works, but it is smooth and shiny, and thoroughly entertaining from start to finish. And a faithful adaptation to boot.You see, with "Like A Dragon", the celebrated but wacky director enters the world of video game screen adaptations, translating Sega's Playstation 2 hit game "Yakuza" into cinematic terms. But Tomb Raider or Doom this is not. For one, "Yakuza" (which I've played and enjoyed) had a much superior storyline to most other games out there. Thrilling and dark, the story of the game gets adapted, with seeming ease, into Miike-speak. How did they condense a 15-hour storyline into a 100-minute movie? Not perfectly, but satisfactorily. A few jumps and omissions bespeak the origins of the story, but overall the story holds.The reason for this easy transition is clear: The world of the yakuza, petty criminals, cops and street urchins is right in well-tested Miike territory. After dozens of films that deal with the underworld of Japan, the veteran director knows his stuff. A yakuza game + a yakuza director is a marriage made in (some perverted) heaven. Visually, too, this film captures the atmosphere and locale of the game. The colour spectrum of both the outdoors shots and the indoor sets is pleasing to the eye, and almost every shot is beautiful to look at. Especially in a few indoors shots there is poetry to violence.Mixing humour (as Miike does) with violence and tragedy, the film never loses its edge. Miike captures both the serious and comic side of the thugs and social rejects in the film. Many of the characters in the game, especially the young girl, Haruka, and the delinquent teenage lovers are really likable and you really feel for their fates.The storyline may leave those who haven't played the game hanging (just who-what-where?), but it isn't necessary to play the game to appreciate the movie. They both stand on their own.Lucky for Miike to have such good source material, and lucky for Sega to be able to attach one of the great directors of today in a project that otherwise would have been doomed to mediocrity. Salvaged by style and visual richness, "Like A Dragon" is an above-average Miike film with enough twists and turns to make you feel like game-to-movie adaptations ARE possible after all. Uwe Boll and Paul W.S. Anderson - take notes and learn!