Yakuza Apocalypse

Yakuza Apocalypse (極道大戦争, Gokudō Daisensō) is a 2015 Japanese action fantasy–yakuza vampire film directed by Takashi Miike and starring Hayato Ichihara, Yayan Ruhian, and Riko Narumi.[2][3] It was written by Yoshitaka Yamaguchi. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2015, before being released theatrically on June 20 throughout Japan.

Yakuza Apocalypse
Theatrical release poster
Directed byTakashi Miike
Produced by
  • Yoshinori Chiba
  • Shin'ichirô Masuda
  • Shinjiro Nishimura
  • Misako Saka
Written byYoshitaka Yamaguchi
Starring
Music byKôji Endô
CinematographyHajime Kanda
Edited byKenji Yamashita
Production
companies
Distributed byNikkatsu
Release date
  • 21 May 2015 (2015-05-21) (Cannes)
  • 20 June 2015 (2015-06-20) (Japan)
Running time
115 minutes[1]
CountryJapan
Language
  • Japanese
  • English

Plot

Genyo Kamura is a benevolent Yakuza boss who is secretly a vampire. Because of this, he can withstand almost every injury, but he must also periodically drink blood from other people. One day, a gunslinging priest and a martial artist named Mad-Dog arrive in Kamura's town, where they decapitate Kamura and wound his second-in-command Akira Kageyama. In his last moments, Kamura's dying head bites Kageyama, thus turning him in a vampire too.

Dazed and confused, Kageyama wanders the streets and bites a passerby, who also becames a vampire, which initiates a vampire epidemic. Eventually, the entire town population becomes vampires, except for the local Yakuza, since vampires dislike Yakuza blood.

Meanwhile, it is revealed that the Yakuza Captain has been secretly working for the priest and Mad-Dog, who talk about a "modern monster" that is supposed to arrive in town with delay. Furthermore, the Captain starts exhibiting strange behaviour and her brain starts to melt and sporadically flow out of her ear canal. The "modern monster" is revealed to be a man in a frog inflatable costume who is a superb acrobatic martial artists and can hypnotize people.

In the film's climax, two Yakuza brothers manage to kill the priest and attempt to kill the monster, but get killed. Meanwhile, an axe-wielding vampire boy kills the rambling Captain. After that, Kageyama and the frog-monster have a duel in which the monster's costume gets destroyed except for his face-mask, and Mageyama seemingly kills the monster by taking off 2 band-aids which covered the monster's navel.

Weakened Kageyama kisses his love interest Kyoko, and after that he and Mad-Dog have a drawn-out test of strength during which Mad-Dog dies. The film ends with Kageyama growing bat-wings and flying off, while Kyoko rings a gong and a gigantic version of the frog-costumed monster starts destroying landscape.

Cast

Production

Production on the film began on 17 April 2014. The film features Indonesian actor and stunt choreographer Yayan Ruhian, who had previously costarred in The Raid and The Raid 2. It marks his first foray into acting outside of his native Indonesia.

Reception

The film received mixed to positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 63% rating, based on 40 reviews.[4] Metacritic reports a 62 out of 100 rating, based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[5]

See also

References
  1. "YAKUZA APOCALYPSE (18)". British Board of Film Classification. 11 December 2015. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
  2. Kevin Ma (18 April 2014). "Miike to battle yakuza vampires". Film Business Asia. Retrieved 29 April 2014.
  3. 映画 極道大戦争. allcinema (in Japanese). Stingray. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  4. "Yakuza Apocalypse (2015)". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
  5. "Yakuza Apocalypse reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
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