Event

DEAD OR ALIVE 2: BIRDS

Dir. Takashi Miike, 2000.
Japan. 97 min.

More pastoral poem than yakuza film, DEAD OR ALIVE 2: BIRDS detours significantly from the previous film into a more elegiac and contemplative tone than Miike is typically known for. When hitman Mizuki (Show Akawa) finds his target assassinated by a rival hitman just as hes about to pull the trigger, the biggest surprise is that the other assassin is childhood friend and fellow orphan Shuuichi (Riko Takeuchi). After encountering each other again while hiding out on the island where they grew up, the two gangsters reconnect and take a rosy trip down memory lane. As they relive erotic schoolyard games, pay respects to a dying former mentor, and don colorful animal costumes to perform a sexual children's play for the local orphan, the two tough guys start to reflect on the lost dreams of childhood. Yet this idyllic tone is continually upset by Miike's ever-provocative direction which takes delight in frequent reminders of the hyper-violent yakuza massacre that is happening back on the mainland. What results from these sudden tonal and narrative shifts is a truly bold and unified poetic vision on the dreams of childhood and violences of maturity that manages convey as much tenderness as chaos.