Shinjuku Triad Society: China Mafia War

Having served his apprenticeship on direct-to-video "V Cinema" productions, director Takashi Miike broke into feature films with this murky and violent crime drama. It tells of a loose-cannon Taiwanese gangster determined to muscle in on Japan's Shinjuku territory, while a dogged cop puts his life on the line to drag his younger brother away from their influence. The moral bankruptcy of all the characters makes for grim viewing, with the use of rape as an interrogation tool (on men as well as women) casting a nasty pall and harking back to Japan's sexploitation movies of the 1970s. Miike takes delight in lingering on such lurid details, adding touches of black humour to make his bleakly compelling story palatable. The first in Miike's loose Black Society Trilogy, it was followed by Rainy Dog (1997) and Ley Lines (1999).