FUDOH: THE NEW GENERATION is probably the best starting point if someone wants to study the new wave of cinema coming out of Japan. While not as good as RING or as thought provoking as AUDITION or the films of "Beat" Takeshi, FUDOH will best prepare you for the extreme limits of violence and taste common to Japanese cinema. (The Japanese perspective on sex and violence is a mix of Paul Verhoeven and the Farrelly Brothers.)
FUDOH's sex and violence isn't in unwatchably bad taste. I'd say it's right on the line.
In the film, a Yukaza father with two sons messes up and must pay a tribute to show loyalty to the other Yakuza families. He does this by killing his oldest son (in a prologue that had me so confused I had to read the video box to follow what was happening.) Ten years later, the youngest son (now the smartest and most popular kid in high school) organizes his friends to take revenge against his father and all the other Yakuza leaders for practicing outdated customs that condone killing one's own family members.
Like most Japanese films, FUDOH works on two levels. On the surface, it's a violent revenge picture (and this one moves faster than most Japanese films.) The film is also a commentary on the relationships between fathers and sons (while enemies the two show more in common then they'd ever admit), young and old, and the need to question tradition and keep things current.
Of course most people will walk away from FUDOH talking about the wild sequences of sex and violence. This is the film by Miike Takashi (DEAD OR ALIVE, AUDITION) that put him on the map. (It also got him labeled the Japanese Verhoeven.) Typical of the director's work, FUDOH would most definitely be 'NC-17', with scenes of six-year-olds performing assassinations and a stripper who shoots poison darts from her.you know where. (You have to see it to believe it, and the fact that Takeshi is able to show it without explicit nudity - the girl uses a blowgun-like tube - proves that he does have a threshold of taste.)
I enjoyed large chunks of FUDOH. It's far superior to the better known DEAD OR ALIVE and more entertaining than AUDITION, although it's nowhere near as mature or thought provoking. It's also worth noting that this film is very Japanese in its behind-the-times attitudes towards females. The sexism is a bit surprising coming from Takashi, since AUDITION (which the director made five years later) is one of the strongest cinematic arguments for a woman's sexual equality that Japan's ever produced.
