Shinjuku kuroshakai: Chaina mafia sensô (1995)

Director:

Takashi Miike

Writer:

Ichirô Fujita

Release Date:

26 August 1995 (Japan)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Plot:

Amidst a Chinese and Japanese mafia war, a lawyer for the Chinese mob finds a rift forming between him and his corrupt police office brother. |

Plot Keywords:

Police | Lawyer | Mafia | Homosexual Rape | Gun

Cast

Kippei Shiina	...	Kiriya
Tomorowo Taguchi	...	Wang
Takeshi Caesar	...	Karino
Ren Ohsugi	...	Yakuza boss
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Yukie Itou
Kyosuke Izutsu
Kazuhiro Mashiko
Yôji Tanaka
Airi Yanagi

Directed by
Takashi Miike

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Ichirô Fujita

Produced by
Tetsuya Ikeda	....	producer
Toshiki Kimura	....	producer
Ken Takeuchi	....	planner
Tsutomu Tsuchikawa	....	producer

Original Music by
Atorie Shira

Cinematography by
Naosuke Imaizumi

Film Editing by
Yasushi Shimamura		(as Taiji Shimamura)

Production Design by
Tatsuo Ozeki

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Hideyuki Yamamoto	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Kunio Ando	....	sound recordist (as Kunio Andô)
Yukiya Sato	....	sound (as Yukiya Satô)

Camera and Electrical Department
Masaaki Sakurai	....	lighting technician

Production Companies

• Daiei Motion Picture Company
• Excellent Film

Distributors

• Daiei Motion Picture Company
• I-On New Media (2005) (Germany) (DVD)
• Palisades Tartan (2009) (UK) (all media)
• Tartan Video (2003) (UK) (subtitled)
• Tokuma Japan Communications Co. Ltd. (Japan) (DVD)
• Toshiba Digital Frontiers (TDF) (Japan) (DVD)

Also Known As:

"Shinjuku Underworld: Chinese Mafia War" - International (English title) (literal title)
"China Mafia War" - Asia (English title)

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Certification:

UK:18 | Germany:18

Company:

Daiei Motion Picture Company

Movie Connections:

Followed by Nihon kuroshakai (1999)

Plenty of stylish and bone crunching violence

I found this a bit hard to follow to the extent that it seemed to dip in the middle while I tried to make head or tail of who was fighting who and why. One of the problems is the cultural/language one. Here we have a Chinese/Taiwanese/Japanese problem of which we know little and because we are simply reading English subtitles inevitably loose some of the subtleties. Another problem is that there seem to be just too many only half explained twists and coincidences. Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that there is a wholly bad Miiki film and this certainly is not that. Plenty of stylish and bone crunching violence, a window upon some less than orthodox sexual goings on plus the family aspect. All in all a decent ride but maybe checking out the storyline might actually be helpful before watching this one.