Synopsis
Tatsuhito, a cop, pursues Chinese warlord Wang through the underworld of Shinjuku and over to Taiwan.
Shinjuku Triad Society
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Alternative Titles
Shinjuku kuroshakai: Chaina mafia sensô, Shinjuku Underworld: Chinese Mafia War, China Mafia War, Les affranchis de Shinjuku, Shinjuku Killers, 新宿黒社会, 新宿黒社会 チャイナ・マフィア戦争, 新宿黒社会 チャイナ マフィア戦争, 신주쿠 흑사회, 新宿黑社会, Тайный мир Синдзюку
Releases by Date
Theatrical
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Japan
Releases by Country
Japan
26 Aug 1995
- Theatrical
Popular reviews
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Miike is fond of outsiders. He likes characters who struggle, do bad things or are structurally disadvantaged. That final point is why so many characters who are queer end up in his movies. He's fascinated by their place in society and their sexual proclivities. His cinema can be radical in his insistence in showing the nastier, fucked up sides of sexuality because he doesn't have a filter for perversion, and I find this refreshing. But it would take more than simply showing these acts for it to function as an interesting fact or become good cinema. Where Miike frequently succeeds is through leveling these characters with an empathetic gaze, which may not become apparent at the given time, but come…
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Shinjuku is a bizarre film even by Miike's standards. I'm still undecided about whether I like this film or not and I'm not quite sure where to begin describing this film. In layman's terms it's a film about two brothers, one's a police officer (Kiriya) the other is a lawyer (Yoshihito) working for the mafia. During the course of the film a war breaks out between the Chinese and Japanese gangs, and it's down to Kiriya to keep his younger brother safe from the fallout.
Shinjuku is one of Miike's early projects and was the first one to get him noticed, whether that's from the sheer shock factor or genuine talent I don't know. The film has a certain low…
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I ordered the Black Society trilogy boxset shortly after seeing Takashi Miike's excellent Fudoh: The New Generation. Shinjuku has some delightful Miike absurd moments, but overall the story just isn't that strong and the movie kind of meanders. I am still very excited to check out both Rainy Dog and Ley Lines though.
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"Shinjuku Triad Society" is a 1995 Japanese crime film directed by Takashi Miike. The film marks the first effort in Miike's "Black Society Trilogy" which isn't within direct cannon of each other but rather holds placement in similar theme. Most prominent is a crime underworld connection between Japan and China (and Taiwan), or the "Yakuza" and "Triads" respectively. The placement of these two organized crime families going head-to-head also invites a theming of immigration between the two countries of origin for much of the dialogue in these stories. It also has to be remarked that "Shinjuku Triad Society" marked Miike's first theatrical film in his career, before that making straight to video productions.
"Shinjuku Triad Society" is understandably decent for…
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Fairly inauspicious start to the Black Society trilogy. This was Miike's first theatrical feature and as you might expect, it's very much the work of a director still finding his voice. Stylistically, the ghost of Miike future is manifest, with eye-catching use of colour (the green silk bed sheet and red-lit bedroom scene, the neon sheen of the Tokyo night reflected in puddles), quick cutting and shaky cam work lending the film a certain urgency, but elsewhere it's a bit of a mess - especially in the plotting. To be honest, I had a hard time following the finer details. There's a corrupt cop who has a love/hate relationship with his younger brother, a trainee solicitor with a haircut only…
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Shinjuku Triad Society was the first theatrical release of Takashi Miike's to make waves and pique the general public's interest. It's an uneven but thoroughly entertaining crime drama with glimpses of greatness and featuring some of Miike's stylistic flourishes in their infant stages. Despite being hard to follow and not as polished as some of his later works, I couldn't get enough of it. I love the Miike films that feature themes such as loyalty, corruption, perversion, and violence, and this film portrays and explores all of those things in creative ways. It's pretty disturbing throughout, but Miike adds dark humor and compelling drama to the equation to give the film more depth and make it more engaging.
The unflinching…
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My Mini Miike Marathon: Part One
"Pus is coming out of my dick."
Nasty-as-ever early Miike yakuza vs. triad vs. cop crimesploitation flick. Three thematic vectors make up this triad, to acquiesce to an easy but irresistible pun.
The most obvious is the corporeal: Miike is fascinated with extreme gore on one side and perverse sexuality on the other. While he seems rather sympathetic to both sides, finding beauty in the violence and empathy with the nonconformity, there's an intersection between the two that feels resolutely disquieting for both Miike and the audience. When intimacy is used as a weapon, when this sexuality becomes violence, it violates something sacred about the sanctity of the body. When the two sides cross,…
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Early punk Miike, so scuzzy we can feel the low rent ambiance in the texture of every bad lightened shot.
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"I have to tell you what love really means."
Takashi Miike started showing his hand before than this, but Shinjuku Triad Society is definitely one of the earliest times you see his style really come together critically. Miike's theatrical debut is a hyper violent, irreverently comical, unflinchingly disturbing film with a focus on crime and the underclass while featuring a main character that tries their damnedest to make them impossible to pull for.
All of those are things you are probably completely used to in a Miike film by now, but it is decidedly interesting to see them all in such a raw state. Just because it is raw or not as slick as future entries in his catalog doesn't…
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"Aren't you a little light?"
"The rate is now 60%. You're making money from Chinese girls. That's the way it is."
"The Yamane clan is behind me, you know? Don't mess with me."
"The rate is now 60%. You're making money from Chinese girls. That's the way it is."
"I've been involved in this business since the black market days. You have their passports so they do what they're told. Take them somewhere else. Nobody in Shinjuku will touch them."
"The rate is now 60%. You're making money from Chinese girls. That's the way it is."Nobody in Shinjuku Triad Society is fooling around. They're all mean fucking bastards willing to kill, maim or rape to get their way, whether…
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There's something about this one, being in that mid 90s period that goes against the comically gay story lines and turns it a bit more cruel. Sure there's the Miike black humor but even with the continuous gay sex whether it be interrogation or addiction, it didn't come across (to me anyways) as a joke. There's violence involved in this, people are dying over it. It slightly loses its way once they enter Taiwan but ends with a dark style that fits for it. This one just worked for me. Also, going through Miike's early filmography, I norice an involvement in the story with Chinese gangsters, I'm not certain what societal implications this was addressing, feel free to point this out to me as I'd love to know what was going on in the 80s-90s between Japanese gangs and Chinese gangs.
This one is a bit longer, lots of booty involved, bullets, blood, trauma, brothers, and beer. Loved it. -
stumbles in hard-to-follow narrative chaos and a slice of aimless meandering, but other than that, this is an excellent early flourish in style that Miike will soon dramatically flesh-out and capitalize on between sadism in sex, violence, and his commentaries therein. beautiful colors juxtapose the array of gunshots and bodily assault with a dash of familial strife powdered in to touch an emotional string that, again, is just a glimpse of the efforts to come from the master of giddily gruesome eccentricity.
