Takashi Miike directs Kazuya Kamenashi, Nanao and Riho Yoshioka in this Japanese thriller where a psychopathic lawyer enters a game of cat and mouse with an axe wielding killer dressed as a monster from a children’s picture book.

Is it my patience that has eroded? Has my attention span gone? Or are filmmakers, even voices as idiosyncratic and OTT as Miike, packing all the juice into the first act these days? Desperate for you to stream enough of their movie so you are hooked or at the very least they pass into the rubicon of algorithmic success? The first 45 minutes of this are set piece nirvana. A prologue where police raid a mansion of surgical horrors. A car chase with brass balls. A monster attacks a monster and one looks like something straight out of the Stan Winston workshop. Every time someone dies blood gushes in orgasmic fountains. And then it slowly normalises. The plot is still wacky but the form resembles a Sunday night detective drama. The geysers of crimson dissipate. The last hour is fine but who wants ‘fine’ from Miike?

6

Perfect Double Bill: First Love (2019)

You can follow me on Letterboxd here https://letterboxd.com/BobbyCarroll