Rainy Dog (Gokudô kuroshakai, 1997)
Miike Takashi
Japan
95 min, color, Japanese (English subtitles)
Review © 2004 Branislav L. Slantchev
With this film, Miike continues his Black Society trilogy, the first entry of which, Shinjuku Triad Society, saw the protagonist cop chasing leads in Taiwan. The action in this one takes place entirely there, mostly in Taipei, even though the two main characters remain Japanese. Miike regular Aikawa Sho is now Yuji, a hired gun on the run from "the pursuer," a mysterious Japanese (detective? rival?) played by the incomparable Taguchi Tomorowo. Somewhat surprisingly, the cat-and-mouse play between the two forms a distant background to the film, which centers on the relationships between Yuji and two other characters: his mute son Ah Chen and the prostitute Lily (Chen Xian-Mei).
 |
 |
| Gamera on a Windows machine... say it ain't so! | The rain is almost an actor by itself |
The film opens with Yuji working the odd meat-processing job and quickly establishes his rather unlikable nature: he dispassionately watches a couple of teenage thugs stab, possibly to death, another one. He does not intervene, and nothing else happens. As usual for a Miike universe, life is so cheap, its loss does not even take place in full view of the camera, but is mostly in the background, unobtrusive and inconsequential. One is hard pressed to imagine just what sort of character arc Miike has in mind for Yuji---or perhaps we'll be stuck following an utterly despicable person for an hour and a half?
 |
 |
| Dog shows up | Yuji on a mission from God... not! |
Spoilers follow.
The possibility that this is not going to be so emerges very quickly in the form of the silent Ah Chen, a tiny boy whose mother unceremoniously dumps in Yuji's apartment claiming that Yuji is his father from way back in some one-night stand that Yuji cannot even recall. Before Yuji can do anything, she is gone, and he is stuck with the kid. That he does not immediately get rid of him is surprising, but the truly astonishing comes next. Yuji takes Ah Chen (or rather, allows Ah Chen to drag along behind him) to his next "assignment": the murder of some guy who has somehow pissed off Yuji's "employer."
 |
 |
| The Pursuer | Train ride in solitude |
The potential likability of Yuji dissipates as quickly as the echoes of his shots with which he riddles the poor guy in full view of tens of witnesses while the poor schmuck is lunching with his family, complete with a young wife and a little kid. So Yuji is a bastard. Very dedicated to his job and very dependable, of course, but a bastard nevertheless. Needless to say, the brutal display of violence does nothing to promote the healing of Ah Chen's speech impediment. Not that Yuji would care.
 |
 |
| Lily, illuminated | Afterglow, in solitude |
And so the story goes, except that Yuji runs afoul of the murdered guy's brother Hung (Gao Ming-Jun), and finds himself on the run, a kid and somewhat grateful prostitute in tow. These form an unlikely, but predictable, relationship. All three are communication-disabled, so to speak. Yuji rarely takes off his sunglasses, does not say much, and even stops to dine and chat with his pursuer before beating the crap out of him. One would say he needs a human touch. He does have other eccentricities: for example, he cannot work (or go out) on a rainy day, so he "naturally" spends a lot of his time listening to weather forecasts on the radio. But this is the least of his problems. Ah Chen is mute, his deepest communication until the very end is with a stray dog, which probably instinctively "understands" why the little boy sleeps under cartons in a trashy alleyway while his putative father is nailing a whore in the local brothel. Lily spends her time banging random clients, washing her privates, and pretending she's someone else on her website. Not a whole lot of connectivity here, a point underscored by Miike when he shows Yuji and Ah Chen traveling---they sit alone in the train car, not even sharing seats, staring out opposite windows; and when he shows Yuji and Lily after sex---they sit along on the bed, in opposite corners, never looking at each other.
 |
 |
| A stray dog and his dog | The trip to redemption |
The character study reaches some very predictable conclusions in extremely predictable ways, and as such the film is an incredible disappointment. That Yuji's metal heart would eventually give way is, perhaps, inevitable. Or else we would have an utterly nihilist film. But the sudden change from a killer who does not give a damn to scooter-riding SoCal type, is jarring and incredible. After all, Lily and Ah Chen did not do much more than follow him to the beach. One gets the feeling that a dog would have worked just as fine: dogs are also utterly dependent and reliable in this sort of wordless way. It is not also surprising that Yuji's conversion brings him down in the end. Everyone is liberated, some in their deaths, others from their pursuits, and others from their speech problems. But Miike emphasizes that it is a cycle that won't end when the credits roll: Yuji's surviving son is instructed by Hung (who does not shoot him) to come back and kill him when Ah Chen grows up. One cannot help but believe that this is exactly what's going to happen.
 |
 |
| Happy family | Yuji finally relaxing |
Very different from the other entries in the trilogy, Rainy Dog was shot entirely in Taiwan, and has a bluish color tint that makes it look much colder than it actually is. In fact, the film starts "warming up" by gradually emphasizing the sun and reds as Yuji's character transforms. But the rain never lets up, and most of the proceedings are washed in perpetual downpour, making the film a rather depressing thing to watch. With very little outlandish violence, this Miike outing is easier to stomach for newcomers to the director's oeuvre, but longtime fans will probably find it lacking in excitement. The visuals, however, are sheer pleasure to watch. You don't normally get to see so many carefully composed scenes in low-budget movies.
 |
 |
| The next rung in the cycle | Consolation |
The Artsmagic DVD is very nice. Available separately and as part of the special edition Black Society Trilogy, it offers an anamorphic widescreen transfer (somewhat dark and grim, but as good as it will ever get), superb English optional subtitles, and a plenty of extras: a feature-length commentary by the knowledgeable Tom Mes, trailers, filmographies of the cast, along with special interviews with Miike and his editor.
September 13, 2004