Takashi Miike

Takashi Miike, born August 24, 1960, in Yao, Osaka, is a Japanese filmmaker whose career has ranged from direct-to-video crime stories to horror, historical action, manga adaptations, television, and studio features. He attended the Yokohama Vocational School of Broadcast and Film before working as an assistant director. Miike made his directing debut with the 1991 video feature Eyecatch Junction. His early output was closely connected to Japan’s V-Cinema market. Shinjuku Triad Society (1995), Rainy Dog (1997), and Ley Lines (1999) are commonly called the “Black Society Trilogy,” films involving yakuza, immigrant communities, and cross-border criminal networks.

Audition (1999), adapted from a novel by Ryu Murakami, brought Miike major international attention. In it, widower Aoyama and his producer friend organize a fake casting call so that Aoyama can meet a prospective wife. He selects the seemingly reserved Asami Yamazaki, and the film gradually turns from romantic drama into violent psychological horror. Miike followed it with Ichi the Killer (2001), based on Hideo Yamamoto’s manga, a graphic yakuza revenge film centered on the sadistic enforcer Kakihara and the unstable killer Ichi.

His work has often shifted sharply in tone. The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001) combines family comedy, musical numbers, clay animation, and murder. Gozu (2003) is a surreal gangster film in which a yakuza subordinate searches for his missing superior. One Missed Call (2003) concerns victims who receive voicemail messages dated in the future that record their own deaths. Zebraman (2004), adapted from a script by Kankuro Kudo, follows a schoolteacher who becomes a superhero modeled on a cancelled television program.

Miike directed Crows Zero (2007) and Crows Zero 2 (2009), prequels to Hiroshi Takahashi’s Crows manga, about rival factions at Suzuran All-Boys High School. His 2010 remake of Eiichi Kudo’s 13 Assassins follows thirteen samurai assembled to kill the cruel shogunate official Naritsugu Matsudaira. The film was selected for competition at the Venice International Film Festival. He later adapted Masaki Kobayashi’s Harakiri as Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011), using 3D photography.

Other notable features include Lesson of the Evil (2012), Shield of Straw (2013), Yakuza Apocalypse (2015), Blade of the Immortal (2017), and First Love (2019). Blade of the Immortal adapts Hiroaki Samura’s manga about the immortal swordsman Manji. First Love premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight section at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival and follows a boxer, a call girl, yakuza figures, and corrupt police during one night in Tokyo.