re:mote voices

Title: Fudoh: A New Generation
Cast: Shosuke Tanihara, Kenji Takano, Marie Jinno, Tamaki Kenmochi, Tôru Minegishi, Miho Nomoto, Riki Takeuchi
Director: Takashi Miike

Fudoh is a senior Yakuza. When the older of his two sons steps out of line, pushing the city to the brink of a gang war, he decides that he must sacrifice his son to prevent violence. Ten years later the leaders of that particular gang are being picked off one at a time. The killings by a new generation of Yakuza - pre-teen killers and schoolgirl assassins. It isn't long before Fudoh realises that these attacks are being orchestrated by his other son, who witnessed his father murder his brother and swore revenge all those years ago.

To a degree this is a reasonably straightforward Yakuza film - tattooed gangsters killing each other for power or honour. But this is also a Miike Takashi film, and while he has done a number of regular Yakuza films, Fudoh has more of that controversial, taboo breaking edge that has made Miike such a notorious director around the world. Fudoh is one of his earlier films, so it is not as violent or shocking as some of his work, though it shows the direction he was moving in at that time.