THE CITY OF LOST SOULS (2000)
Directed by Takashi Miike
Starring: Teah, Michelle Reis
Genre: Action
Running Time: 105mins

Rating:

After hijacking a helicopter on a frenetic mission to rescue his Chinese girlfriend, Kei, from deportation, Mario (a Brazillian/Japanese) searches high and low through Okinawa, Rio, and Shinjuku for the transport needed to get out of Japan and into Australia. So far so simple, but with a combination of Triads, and Yakuza on thier trail after a botched robbery their escape is going to get a lot harder as tensions mount not only from the need for survival but also from differences in race and ethics.

For some, The City Of Lost Souls has been described as Miike on auto-pilot. And in all honesty I have to agree with that statement, for with City it is clear that somewhere along the line Miike has lost the magic that makes his previous efforts so enjoyable and so wildly original. Sure the trademark Miike qualities are included - from the garish attention to detail (turd in the toilet) surrealist imagery (a russians guide to..) and bending of film logic and reality (the final shot). But the main problem with City is that it is so poorly acted by all concerned.

No-one in the principal cast is effective in any way, the protagonist carries so little screen presence, and the relationship with Kei is so superficial and strained that you simply don't really care if they live or die. Sure, the films intention is purely as an action movie but still, the effort must be made to atleast engage us in the story. But sadly this is not the case, City is nothing more than a showreel for Miike's wild and wonderful visual style. Now that isn't always a bad thing - as can be seen with his other "entertaining bollocks" efforts such as Fudoh, but atleast with Fudoh there was an attempt at substance beneath the visceral excesses on display.

I don't know what exactly to say of praise for City - there is much to say that is genuinely good about the film, but they are so insignificant in terms of scale and importance that it's difficult to pick one as a figurehead. Most reviewers seem to mention the CGI Cockfight sequence, which is genuinely bizarre but, for me, didn't hold up as I'd anticipated. Most impressive for me was the geographical head-fuck that Miike has presented. Switching locations in the middle of shots, the juxtaposition of its multi-national cast and the constantly switching of spoken languages creates a society of confusion perfectly complementing the theme of a world no longer having its own identity.

This is nicely spelt out by a Japanese detective at one point : "they make sushi now" he says in reference to his much hated influx of foreigners "Gaijin" that he see's as an infestation diluting the identity of Japan. Very little about this film is Japanese - fusing Brazillian, Japanese and Chinese dialogue, with such diverse shooting locations as Tokyo, Rio, and the cityscapes and the deserts of the US the world it seems is becoming less and less identifiable.

I guess that despite the occasional visual flurry from Miike (the ping-pong death, the moth and spider tattoos and the helicopter drop are particularly worth noting) the overall achievements of the film are outweighed by the truly shocking acting on display. It's a regular problem seen in Asian cinema where a western influence simply does not sit right in the overall scheme of things. Sure it's the fundamental structure for City however, that does not necessarily make it a good one. According to interviews, Miike hired unknown actors with little or no experience to make up the background world of a multi-national Japan - the effect desired must have been naturalism, the result is complete failure as they fail to do anything but distract.

The City Of Lost Souls is a dissapointing film from Miike lacking both the substance and control he displayed in his previous efforts. Casting aside the acting abilities of those concerned, this is still very much an average film - peppered momentarily with sequences of comic absurdity and brutality.