Ley Lines

The concluding film in Miike Takashi’s ‘Triad Society’ trilogy (previous films, both unmissable: Shinjuku Triad Society and Rainy Dog) wraps up his exploration of the abrasive interface between Chinese and Japanese gangsters. All three films tell their stories against backdrops of pornography, prostitution and perversion, but the focus this time is more down-to-earth. Three young men of non-Japanese descent uproot themselves from Sticksville and take the train to the big city, where they suffer all the traditional misfortunes of their kind, including humiliation and robbery at the hands of a brassy hooker. But they begin to find their financial feet as peddlers of quack ‘medicine’, only to run foul of a Japanese Mr Big (played by Takenaka Naoto at his most pervy). The implication this time is that it’s Japan itself which is the Triad society, forcing those it denies membership of the club into acts of crime, violence and romantic folly. Miike, of course, films this story with unbridled brio. He opens with damaged home-movie footage of the main characters playing war games as small kids and ends with an epiphany worthy of Pierrot le fou. In between, he uses Imaizumi Naosuke’s brilliant hand- held camera to penetrate every crevice of the underclass experience, including those ordinary lenses never reach. (T.R.)