The joy of Yakuza Apocalypse is that it's Takashi Miike doing that Takashi Miike does, what he has done, since the 90's and yet it's a filmmaker even more confident in his skills and more assured in the timing of his shots and cuts. Thinking back to another gonzo-Yakuza movie like Dead or Alive or even Ichi the Killer, he reveled in more of a sloppy, throw-lots-of-WILD-things-at-the-wall approach to his compositions and how he would cut, but now he's gone through films like 13 Assassins and Hara-Kiri, where he found a way to balance action and a more (what's the damn word here) patient way to get the audience into the drama. And yes, drama may sound strange in a movie that could also be called YAKUZA VAMPIRE SHOWDOWN and be entirely accurate. But it is a joy as a fan to see Miike in full command of his powers as the truest Gonzo filmmaker in the world. Does it mean he's the best? I dunno.
All I do know is that in Yakuza Apocalypse, if you're on board for the kind of insanity as far as action set pieces, characters, and plot turns that Miike has done in his career - the kind of 'don't give a f***ery' that has made him a household name for cult film enthusiasts - you get things like... a man in a green frog suit who can do martial arts to such a point where Bruce Lee runs for the hills, a duck-billed... man, no, really, he has duck bills in his mouth (and refers to this green-frog-suited man as "the world's most dangerous terrorist"), and, of course Yakuza vampires. How our hero, a young Yakuza who just has always wanted to do right by his boss - and that his boss gets his ass kicked and head chopped off by a rival looking to take over (you can tell since he speaks English and has like a Shakespeare-style neck collar, and his own bad-ass kung-fu fighter that can kick anyone into oblivion), gets turned and then makes others vampires.... well, you have to see it for yourself.
I think the biggest knock I had against this, at least during the first half, was that it is too long. At 115 minutes I'm sure where are scenes here or there that could have been cut, things involving some of the lower-rung Yakuza gangster men (the ones who, you know, are especially idiots but loyal and tough Yakuza guys, they more or less last until the climax too), and made it a little tighter. At the same time, I'm not sure looking back I'd want Miike to close and bottle up his full Miike-ness from the audience. By the time he and his writers go into action over-drive, which involves the entirety of this whole small... town, village, whatever you call it (there are also Western influences that are impossible to miss involving showdowns in the street and shots aping such things), it becomes one of the director's high points of a long career.
He and especially all of the insane stunt performers, who are fighting in such intense set pieces and choreography that I almost felt bad for them, but just almost (that poor guy in the frog suit, what he must've gone through) give it their all, up until the final frames where I threw up my hands going, "SURE?! WHY NOT!!??!"
