Fudoh - The New Generation (1996)

Director: Takashi Miike

Producer: Yoshinori Chiba, Toshiki Kimura

Cast: Shosuke Tanihara, Kenji Takano, Marie Jinno, Tamaki Kenmochi, Tôru Minegishi, Miho Nomoto, Riki Takeuchi, Takeshi Caesar, Yuichi Minato, Mickey Curtis, Satoshi Niizuma, Rin Sakiyama

Running Time: 100 mins.

Plot: High School gangster Riki Fudoh seeks to dethrone his father as the head of a criminal organization with the help of high school friends and pre-teen assassins.

Availability: This title is available at HKflix.com

WOODY'S REVIEW: Pussy fart darts. Pre-teen assassins. Riki Takeuchi putting out a cigarette on Mickey Curtis' severed head. A giant member of Riki's gang kicking a severed head, splattering it into pieces, no doubt angering the young children using it for a game of soccer. Buckets of blood. Hermaphrodite sex. Need I say more?

This, my friends, is great cinema. This is the one that established Takashi Miike as one to watch for, and it still ranks among his best.

"Fudoh- The New Generation" is as close to a live-action manga as I have yet to see. After a subdued, fifteen minute introduction that sets up high school gangster Riki Fudoh's motives for dethroning his father as the head of a powerful criminal organization, the film jumps right into it, with Riki's high school friends and pre-teen killers annihilating the other members of the said organization, each killing topping the previous one is creativity and goriness. The fast pacing and excessive, overstated gore are part of what gives this film it's manga feel. The other factor is the characters. They are a memorable and interesting bunch. Riki is cool as iceâ"quiet, tormented, and intelligent. Riki's posse includes a hermaphrodite who shoots queef powered darts out of her vagina and an impossibly cool giant Hawaiian guy who rides on a motorbike, does rebellious shit, knows karate, and, after surviving the death of his bike in an explosion, dons a metal face plate. Riki Takeuchi is on hand as a bad guy with a mullet and a deadly smirk. Only Riki Takeuchi can wear a mullet and still be cool as hell.

A film like "Fudoh" could never get made in the US. Take a scene towards the middle of the film. Fudoh sends two of his grade school aged assassins to take out Riki Takeuchi's character. As the boys unload their guns at Takeuchi, one of his bodyguards jumps in front of him, intercepting the bullets. The boys are all out. Their guns are empty. Useless. They look at each other. They look, terrified, at Takeuchi. Takeuchi smirks. Cut to a dumpster the following morning. A man goes to take out some trash. Looking down, he sees a black garbage bag. Sticking out of it- a young boys limp arm.

This is a great starting point if you are interested in filmmaker Takashi Miike. This film houses many of the recurring themes present in Miike's later films, namely- freaky sex, excessive, cartoonish graphic violence, and the place of foreigners in Japan.

I believe it was Howard Hawks who said that in order for a film to be great it had to have three great scenes and no bad ones. There are no particular scenes in "Fudoh" that I can really call bad, yet plenty that reach the heights of greatness. One of my personal favorites, this comes highly recommended. I mean, how many films feature pussy fart darts? Only in a Miike movie

WOODY'S RATING: 10/10