Rainy Dog

Rating:
Summary: Not your usual Miike...but great
Review: Atypical for Takashi Miike, this film, whose main character is a lone yakuza--and is thus a crime drama--eschews ferocious, nasty violence and instead focuses on the emotional elements of loss and abandonment. Exiled to Taiwan for a major screwup, Yuji finds almost ceaseless rain in Taipei where he works for a local crime boss as a hitman.

But even with his exile, his screwup is not forgiven. The Japanese boss has sent one of his thugs to Taipei to gun for Yuji; the thug lives on a rooftop and finds pleasure urinating from a great height. As well as the Japanese gunsel in his life, Yuji has a supposed son, a young boy of 7 or 8, foisted on him by a woman he barely remembers sleeping with, then finds a prostitute to accompany him in his aimless day-to-day existence.

Yuji is completely faithful to his Taipei boss, flawlessly in fact, and assassinates the brother of a lawyer whose vengeance knows no bounds. This sets in motion a tragic cycle of events that, while fraught with violence, still manages to convey, more than anything else, a deep sadness in a life wasted on taking other lives.

This is a great film, a unique one for Miike, and the DVD has a terrific special feature included--two separate interviews with Miike taped at different times. This gives the viewer some real insight into the mind of one of Japan's most interesting contemporary filmmakers.

Highly recommended.