Exclusive: Takashi Miike Talks Yakuza Apocalypse, His Eclectic Approach, Fearlessness, and More
Available now on VOD and in select theaters is Takashi Miike’s Yakuza Apocalypse, and to say it springs out of the gates of madness is an understatement. Nothing will stop the newly fanged Kageyama (Hayato Ichihara) from keeping his gang in line and avenging his boss and former head vampire, Kamiura. Not a frilly vampire slayer nor a felt suit-wearing frog creature. There is much fu plus undead hijinks and bloodletting. And everything’s coming up Yakuza.
Dread Central spoke to Miike about how a film like that is even conceived, much less implemented and brought to life. Why does cinema deserve a scene where a giant frog destroys craft store trees while a volcano erupts? And what is it like to be “fearless” as a filmmaker?
Dread Central: How did this film come about?
Takashi Miike: It came about naturally, but after I was supposed to make a movie with a Hollywood star, but because of a schedule conflict with one of the actors on the American side, I was unable to do it. So all of a sudden I found myself with a bit of time and I thought, ‘Okay, what am I gonna do then?’ So this came out.
Dread Central: Can you explain the audience reaction to this incredibly entertaining, insane movie? When you made the film, what reaction were you hoping for when an audience got to see it?
Takashi Miike: First off, I was hoping that people who would see the movie said, ‘Okay, so… what kind of producer would agree to take this movie on, give a greenlight to a movie like this? The country that has that kind of producer perhaps is a nice place…’
Dread Central: Can you speak to your attraction to genre films—like horror, exploitation films? Are you a fan of horror movies?
Takashi Miike: From my perspective as a filmmaker, I’m not particularly aware or conscious of making traditional horror genre movies. There’s also the fact that a lot of different genres of the movies I make, the ones that are shown overseas and are seen by people overseas, tend to be more of the type of movie that [you mentioned]. I’ve made so many different types of movies; I want to show different types of movies to different kinds of audiences, and what I notice is actually a lot of the directors who make horror movies tend to make only horror movies, and for me, it seems to me very boring—do they not get tired of it? Japanese are very sort of greedy in a way—in terms of food as well. We eat different types of… we’re very eclectic in our taste. So that might be something that is in my filmmaking—I’m very eclectic.
Dread Central: That is certainly very true. The film is quite stylized; there’s a lot of artifice, which is something that is a trait of a number of your films—the use of stop-motion animation and various techniques that are obviously, intentionally not realistic.
Takashi Miike: In the world of Japanese filmmaking, a lot of movies are made on a very low budget. When you want to make a script that has all kinds of scenes, they say, ‘Okay, we don’t have enough money to shoot that, so go shoot something that we can make with our budget…’ I often take a script that has grandiose settings and scenes, and all it takes is a little bit of creativity. So that’s why at the end you see the characters all of a sudden senselessly—almost meaninglessly—become really huge and gigantic, and so after that you think, ‘Okay, well, we were able to do it, right?’ You just have to think of a way to be able to make the script onto the scene, and then you say, ‘Yeah! We did it!’ And that’s really… even though it was low-budget, and somehow because it was low-budget, we came up with these kind of ways… And so, from the point of view of the one making the film, I don’t want to say, ‘We can’t make this scene because it’s too much money.’
Dread Central: About the film’s music, I hear some Western elements to the score; I hear a little bit of horror in the score. How did you and the film’s composer, Koji Endo, approach the music for the film?
Takashi Miike: I’ve been working with Endo-san for a long time now… I give him a lot of freedom to do what he wants. I like spontaneous interaction between me and Endo. With Endo, oftentimes it comes down to how he feels at that time in terms of health conditions, how he’s doing—and that’s how the music is created.
Dread Central: What advice would you give to filmmakers that aspire to be even a fraction of how productive, eclectic, and creatively fearless you continue to be?
Takashi Miike: For me, a director is somebody who can… he’s the one who says ‘No’ to things—also, I can’t make this movie because of this genre of film— but what is film? He’s also a person—If you’re really stuck in your ways, and say ‘Okay, I’m making this kind of movie only, I have a low budget [so] I can’t make… that’s not what I would advise. I want to tell young people, young aspiring directors to always… [stick to] their own convictions, even if it’s a dream that they have: Why do you have this dream? Keep making movies. Don’t say, ‘I can’t make that movie because it’s against my convictions.’ I think that’s the most important part… to do something, challenge yourself, and do not hesitate.
Directed by Takashi Miike (13 Assassins, Audition, Ichi The Killer) from a script by Yoshitaka Yamaguchi, Yakuza Apocalypse stars Hayato Ichihara, Riko Narumi, Lily Frankie, Yayan Ruhian, and Den Den. Watch it now on Amazon and all the usual VOD outlets.
Synopsis:
Yakuza boss Kamiura is a legend. Rumored to be unkillable, the truth is he is a vampire – a vampire yakuza boss! Among Kamiura’s gang is the loyal Kageyama. However, the young Kageyama is looked down on by the other yakuzas due to the sensitive skin that prevents him from being tattooed. One day, men arrive from abroad and deliver Kamiura an ultimatum: return to the syndicate he left years ago or die. Kamiura refuses and, during a fierce battle, is torn limb from limb. With his dying breath, Kamiura passes on his powers to Kageyama. As his newfound abilities awaken, Kageyama’s desire to avenge his boss sets him on a violent confrontation with the seemingly unstoppable foreign syndicate.
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