Full Metal Yakuza is a blatantly corny direct-to-video action movie, but I am enthralled by its hero, an aspiring yakuza, made to clean on his hands and knees by the very guys he idolizes, unable to achieve an erection when he's lucky enough to bed down sexy gang molls, bullied by young street punks who would be pulverized by any other yakuza, and then killed as a result of a double-cross. One understands, as one does with similar movies like RoboCop, The Guyver and other movies about a superhuman rebirth, that the premise of the movie is that his body finds itself in the hands of a scientist who keeps him alive by replacing much of his body with robotic body parts. So he has colossal strength and robotic genitalia. He then seeks revenge.
I was excited for him the way one is always cheaply stimulated by movies like this. But Miike, freed by the exploitative invitations of the blood-and-guts shoot-em-up video market in which he is working here, gets the inclination to go crazy, but in the direction opposite the one in which he normally goes. We go from slam-bang gangster cyborg vendetta to hues of more elevated art-house elements characteristic of Japanese cinema elements, such as the scene at the beach after a refusal to kill a gang boss. Outside of this movie's genus, violence and revenge are never as aloof and zany as they are within it, and Miike has certainly done leagues better with the same subject matter, as with Izo and Ichi the Killer.
The movie leaves us with the sort of jarringly extreme material that Miike regales later in his career, but with more directly exploitative ends. It's not that the movie combats any real analysis. It simply shrugs at the idea of significance, not caring enough to be remembered. And perhaps I wouldn't feel so apathetic about that if I didn't begin with such investment in the underdog protagonist.
I was excited for him the way one is always cheaply stimulated by movies like this. But Miike, freed by the exploitative invitations of the blood-and-guts shoot-em-up video market in which he is working here, gets the inclination to go crazy, but in the direction opposite the one in which he normally goes. We go from slam-bang gangster cyborg vendetta to hues of more elevated art-house elements characteristic of Japanese cinema elements, such as the scene at the beach after a refusal to kill a gang boss. Outside of this movie's genus, violence and revenge are never as aloof and zany as they are within it, and Miike has certainly done leagues better with the same subject matter, as with Izo and Ichi the Killer.
The movie leaves us with the sort of jarringly extreme material that Miike regales later in his career, but with more directly exploitative ends. It's not that the movie combats any real analysis. It simply shrugs at the idea of significance, not caring enough to be remembered. And perhaps I wouldn't feel so apathetic about that if I didn't begin with such investment in the underdog protagonist.