Better Late Then Never

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Guess that in potential this could had been a truly awesome and insane revenge flick but the movie instead goes for a more over-the-top and comedy like approach. It doesn't really has the desired effect, since it more often makes the movie just silly instead of entertaining or funny.Normally I either really love or truly dislike a Takashi Miike movie but in this case I'm stuck in the middle somewhere. I really didn't hated the movie but at the same time was also never impressed- or entertained enough by it.Because the movie takes a more comedic approach, it's also being a more simplistic one to watch. It's very straight-forward, without any good depth or underlying emotions to the movie its story and themes. It's why the movie feels like a bit of a bland one, as well as redundant, even for the fans of Takashi Miike movies.For a Takashi Miike movie it also certainly isn't edgy enough. It sounds weird, with all of the violence and gore in this movie but the movie feels quite tame and like it's holding back with its graphic violence. This is something Takashi Miike normally really never ever does! But it's a movie from before the days he became an established name really, so it perhaps isn't so surprising that this movie doesn't feel as edgy and daring as most of his later work.Another problem I really had with this movie was its story. To say it bluntly; this movie really seems to be a Japanese remake of "RoboCop". It uses a very similar concept and even some of the characters and sequences seem alike. So originality was also a big problem with this movie. And as a matter of fact, it makes the movie even weaker, considering that it isn't even halve as good or half as edgy and daring as Paul Verhoeven's "RoboCop". It makes this movie feel like a bit of a lame rip-off attempt.But despite all criticism, this is still a movie you could have some fun with. It's definitely entertaining to watch in parts and with a Takashi Miike movie you are always getting something unique and unusual. The movie is still filled with plenty of moments like that. So despite not being to original with its story, it still is at least being original with some of its scene's.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Kensuke Hagane (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) is a beginner in the Yakuza world , he is very fearful and nobody respect him. After the prison release of Tosa (Takeshi Caesar), who is a Yakuza boss and the idol of Hagane, both are killed as a result of a gang problem with Tosa. Both corpses ends in the hands of mad scientific who creates a kind of robot with parts of both corpses. Now Hagane is part machine with some parts of Tosa, he is bullet proof and has an incredible strength. When he escapes from the scientific, he is looking out for revenge with the heart of his boss and idol, literally.This is the main plot of this unique direct-to-video film and that is full with elements that only a Miike film can have. The storyline is pretty simple and very common in a Yakuza or Mafia film because is just a revenge story but "Full Metal Yakuza" is not a common Yakuza film. Since the main character, Hagane, who is not the usual Yakuza/gangster with the bad-ass attitude, is more like a common guy and he is always afraid. And the sci-fi elements, with all the influence of Paul Verhoeven's Robocop, (Miike said that Verhoeven is one of his biggest influences) are really bizarre and sometimes funny. So the film is like the main character who is part Hagane, part Tosa and part machine; the film is part sci-fi, part Yakuza, part comedy and sometimes is really absurd. And creates bizarre situations like Tosa's girl is in love with Hagane but what she don't know is that Hagane has parts of Tosa, including his penis. Or Hagane eating metal with milk, really bizarre situations like in every other film of Miike.So i really love this film because is unique and for be released direct-to-video with a very low budget it has a very good response, in part because of the cult success of Miike in the West. But anyway, the direct-to-video industry of Japan don't have the same bad reputation of it Western counterpart. And according to the interview with Miike in the DVD, he likes to make films in this industry due to the creative freedom and the less stringent censorship.Conclusion: this film is great and unique, not Miike's best but anyway this film works because of it originality. And is hard that you know about this film before watching "Audition" or "Ichi the Killer", so if you watch this film, like in my case,is because you are into Miike so you must know his bizarre style. Takashi Miike is for me the kind of director that when you see a DVD with his name you don't care about anything else, you just want to see more of his films so i really recommend this film to anyone who likes Miike and also to anyone who want to know about him because this is a great start into his work. 9 out of 10DVD: i have the Region 1 DVD that i think is the only available in the American continent. Is really good, with interviews with the cast and with the crew and anyway is the unique form for watch this film. Also i hope that soon more films of Miike can be release in Mexico and of course with Spanish subtitles.

This would appear to be one of them. If you're a Miike completist, and you simply must see this, try the DVD. That way you can learn to love the blessed ff button. It's cheap and cheesy gore, and I have no complaints about that, but the script appears to have been written by a drunk zombie. Truly it sucks. The interview with Miike on the Arts Magic DVD pretty much explains how and why gonzo trash like this got made, but it doesn't really redeem the 75% of this movie which is just ham awful. It would make a great manga, but the translation to live action only serves to emphasise the lameness of the Franken-san "plot". It clunks, but as a contrast to the beautifully scripted and acted films he's made since, it just about bears watching. Try to borrow or steal a copy of the DVD. That way you won't feel ripped off.

Japanese film maker talent and inventive genius Takashi Miike (born 1960) has done incredible amount of films in his not-even-so-long career so far. He has done made-for-video cheapies and big screen films that vary from unconventional and wonderful Yakuza tales to insane comic book adaptations to mind blowing satires, and the greater the themes in these films are, the more serious he is and uses his ideas and crazy creativity with restraint inside the otherwise serious world he's created: a bazooka torn from a guy's back isn't any funny moment in Dead or Alive (1999) but has its important meaning for the theme telling so much about the character(s) and their values in the violent world Miike depicts.His Full Metal Yakuza aka Full Metal Gokudo (1997) belongs to the cheap and fastly made video films and it is easy to tell it is a very exploitation oriented market that wants simple, violent and graphic films without much more merits in them. Full Metal Yakuza tells the Robocop-like (1987, Paul Verhoeven) story of a killed Yakuza who gets back to life as he is turned into a robot/human by one crazy scientist. He wants to avenge the death of his friend as well as try to save his former love from the sadistic hands of the rival Yakuza. Ultra violence and gore ensues and all the potential that was used to wonderful perfection in Fudoh (1996), for example, is not there in this film.There are some nice Japanese cinema elements like the silence that tells more than words. The scene in the beach after a refusal to kill one Yakuza boss is especially memorable and also close to the work of Takeshi Kitano. Still the revenge theme is not handled here as it was in Dead or Alive or Fudoh. In Full Metal Yakuza, violence and acts of revenge don't have any other meaning than to satisfy the gore audience and that is pretty sad for those who'd like to see Miike making more serious cinema all the time. In real world, violence and revenge is never as harmless and fun as in this film and Miike for sure would have talents to make real films from the subject matter, as he's done. Also the ending, showing how desperate the characters are for personal revenge and payback would be as wonderful as in those other films, but now it all is just mostly comical trash as Miike definitely wasn't doing this for anything else than money and to satisfy his huge need to work. It is hard to make any interpretations on single images and scenes while everything before and after them fights against any serious analyzes.Also the way how females are treated and depicted is pretty unpleasant. I don't think there's even one normal, calm and balanced female character here, all are just screaming and sudden bitches that just need to be killed off by the more or less restrained men. The ending involves a very nasty abusion scene of a female character and that is definitely too strong in a trashy film like this. But fortunately it ends in a way that at least that female had someone who cared for her and loved her so at least females are not completely worthless in the film. Miike has depicted females in various ways and at least films like Fudoh and Rainy Dog show them equally significant, if not always strong, with the men.The film has also very few of the wonderful cinematic elements and ideas of Miike like the kinetic storytelling and speed of City of Lost Souls aka The Hazard City (2000), the brilliant and surreal imagery of one of his masterpieces Dead or Alive, the claustrophobic, creepy and disturbing brilliance of Audition (1999) or the manic elements in the soundtrack, editing and camerawork of Koroshiya Ichi aka Ichi the Killer (2001). Of course the budget in Full Metal Yakuza was much smaller than in those mentioned films, but still the film doesn't offer any significant achievements of its director, other than the typical ultra violence and silliness. At least the always so great criticism towards the Japanese censors who like to censor all the pubic hair off the films is there and again very delightfully so. Another examples of these opinions can be found in his films like Visitor Q (2001) and Rainy Dog (1997). I'm sure the Japanese producers and censors have a lot of fun when they see what has Takashi done now!The film is high on its gore level and so reminds pretty much of Ichi the Killer, a film that is filled with cartoonish violence and blood plus sadism towards both females and males. Full Metal Yakuza has plenty of swordfights (!) and other bloody carnage that gives the makers an opportunity to throw in plenty of blood geysirs and splatter that satisfies some viewers but is not enough when the film is by talented director like Miike. Neither this or Ichi the Killer are to be taken seriously (hardly anyone takes, at least Full Metal Yakuza), and especially Ichi, despite its flaws and negative sides, tells something about the audience, that laughs looking like a bunch of monkeys and as sorry characters as those inside the film, when someone's being tortured and brutally murdered. Ichi the Killer has also some interesting elements in the form of Ichi himself, who is a traumatized boy with violent environment and society around him. This important theme is handled more carefully in Rainy Dog and also in Fudoh.Full Metal Yakuza is filled with desperate and weak human beings that have only few civilized characteristics that make it able to call them men, not only beasts, which they very often are inside in Miike's cinema. Full Metal Yakuza is far from his greatest achievements and ambitions and thus is not at all among his most noteworthy films, but that is understandable considered the film's speedy low budget exploitation money maker status. 4/10 but only as a lover of Japanese cinema. Anyone with not interest in this great cinema and its elements won't likely to be able to sit through the manic and insane (and also the most uninspired) examples of it, like Full Metal Yakuza.