Family

D-

Directed by Takashi Miike

Prolific Japanese master of shock Takashi Miike's "Family," based on a manga I've admittedly never read (or heard of), is a woefully bad effort from an otherwise talented director.

Koichi Iwaki is the godfather of a Japanese Yakuza faction whose members keep getting whacked, kidnapped, and generally abused by rival gangs, leading to Iwaki finally putting his foot down and going out to get some revenge. That's the gist of the film right there and going into any added depth is really unecessary. You may think my attitude towards this review is flippant (it is) but wait until you see the film yourself before judging my apathy towards it (SO THERE!!!).

This is Miike at his worst. The "Family" may not be as gratuitously violent or plainly ugly in its content as other Miike films like "Ichi the Killer" or "Visitor Q" but at least those two movies were thought provoking (if a bit over the top). "Family" is a bore, a poorly made, B-rate piece of action shlock that shows off all of Miike's worst filmmaking excesses. The plot is only vaguely coherent and the whole thing looks like it was filmed on a camcorder with vaseline slathered over the lense. Miike has always been a prolific filmmaker which means his output has sometimes been more about quantity than quality. Indeed, for every "Audition" there have been scores of weaker releases and "Family" is certainly falls into the latter category. Amazingly (to me, at least) "Family" is one of Miike's better known works outside of Japan which I find truly baffling.