Search - Dead or Alive: Final on DVD

The grand final

kuroneko1 | Istanbul Turkey | 11/26/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Well Dead or alive 3 is the final chapter of the 3 movies long series. Now we are in some distant future land where an evil governor force people not to reproduce under his strict rule.
Riki Takeuchi the head of police department special group works for governor and lives with beautiful wife and kid. When he hears that his kid is captured by the rebels, he is set to find his son.Later issues makes it cear that everything is not actually what they seem to be. Sho aikawa at the other hand is a replicant who joins rebels to help them the overthrow the governor. But things do not go according to plan all the time and so the plot since it is a miike work .Place is like a city not too far away from Hong Kong and cantonese will be heard through out the film.
Movie is a direct take on to the blade runner. From the way takeuchi dresses to the sax player mistress of governer, miike once again manages to create such hilarious atmosphere.
Fight sequences, especially between takeuchi and aikawa is excellent as well as ironic. Among the other films of the Death or alive saga, this may seem a bit weaker since it is not a yakuza movie , rather a sci fi movie or better, its absurd parody.
But that doesnot mean it is bad, it is very strange, very controversial and very very odd. Ending is once again out of this world. So this movie is much more different than the first two but nevertheless deserves to be watched. After all, its a miike film."

The best of the bunch.

Robert P. Beveridge | Cleveland, OH | 04/01/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Dead or Alive: Final (Takashi Miike, 2002)



I've now seen the entire Dead or Alive trilogy, and Takashi Miike has done something that I've never actually seen before: the trilogy grew stronger with every film. Dead or Alive: Final is my favorite of the three, and it's more of everything than its predecessors. It's faster, it's more action-packed, it's funnier, and the climactic sequence may be the downright weirdest that Takashi Miike has ever shot. (Yes, including Gozu.) It's loads of fun, and it immediately jumps into a position in my five favorite Miike films. (The others, for anyone who might care: Audition, Sabu, The Bird People in China, and Rainy Dog.)



The year is 2343. Honda (Riki Takeuchi) is an officer on the Japanese police force, which, in Miike's wonderfully impressionist dystopia, has basically become an arm of corrupt yakuza boss Woo (Richard Chen). Japan has completely lost its isolationist tendencies, and is now peopled by a mix of Japanese, Chinese, and English, all of whom speak all three languages fluently, along with a pidgin dialect which mixes all three. (It doesn't matter where you see this film, subtitles will abound.) Honda, after meeting him a few times, realizes that Ryo (Sho Aikawa) is a battle replicant, all of which were supposed to be decommissioned years ago, and Woo sends Honda out to make sure Ryo gets what's coming to him. Ryo flees and winds up hiding out with a band of rebels led by charismatic English-speaker Fong (Terence Yin, last seen this side of the pond in Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life). Police vs. rebels; it's everything a Takashi Miike yakuza flick could want, with an added nod to Blade Runner (and some shout-outs to Miike's friend and occasional partner Shinya Tsukamoto as well). And, yeah, you thought the climaxes of the first two films were weird? This one takes the cake, people. (It also ties in the first two films, albeit loosely; yes, there was a method to Miike's madness all this time.)



I'm not convinced that Takashi Miike can do anything wrong, but there are varying degrees of right in the Miikeverse, and Dead or Alive: Final fires on all cylinders. It's fast and funny, full of action, and has a surprisingly human side. This is fantastic work from a modern master of Japanese cinema; very highly recommended (but see the series in order to understand the ending fully). **** ½

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