If you like your spaghetti dished up with a blood red sauce then Director Takeshi Miike is definitely on the menu as he serves up violence in a stylized art form yet again with his bi cultural carnage cornucopia , ‘ The City Of Lost Souls ’. Opening with all the recognized Western grace of a Clint Eastwood shoot out , pounding to the tune of bullets ricocheting from the four corners of your audio environment with all the resonance of a pogo jack hammering storm trooper.

Enter lead player Mario as the Japanese-Brazilian answer to a modern day Sergio Leon protégé. Icon cool with little to say but honed with the language that bad guys understand as he enters a bar and dispatches his brand of pump action retribution. Like the emergence of an anachronistic Terminator , adorned with a dust encrusted tarpaulin as opposed to a woven poncho , Mario dispenses with his antagonists as well as his attire in a symbol of rebirth.

Fast forward to a state penitentiary bus carrying a beautiful Chinese girl bound amongst other unfortunates , police chaperoned on route to incarceration , when along side hovers a helicopter with Mario on board seeking to emancipate his oriental girlfriend Kei. In true , ‘ The Getaway ’ , gun blazing fashion and bus over turning mayhem , Mario plucks Kei from the bloody frenzied fight for freedom and like a unification of phoenix they rise up to rekindle their flame of passion. With a leap of faith from the metallic whirling bird , in true Takeshi Miike surrealism they crash to Earth to emerge unhurt from a bellowing cloud of dust. They then begin their quest to escape from their past and make a future together for themselves , away from the badlands of Brazil and Japan.

All this and then blazoned across the screen comes the film title and accompanying opening credit sequence that could be forgiven for seeming like the closing captions after so much action having already taken place. With attention grabbing clarity the tune in tonic for the top up chaser to come is enough to ensure another excuse not to stir from a favoured position , and the realization that money well spent on a canine basic stick retrieval training program works just as well with cans of alcoholic beverages.

With Mario and Kei hooking up with a Japanese under the counter passport operator the tone of the movie takes on the duality almost of the Chow Yun Fat and Mira Sorvino characters from , ‘ The Replacement Killers ’ , as it is not long before the factions of Japanese and Chinese gangsters are drawn into the lovers world.

Chinese drug merchant Mr. Ko has lusted after Kei for himself for many years and Japanese Yakuza hard man Mr. Fushimi relentlessly seeks out Mario who has a price on his head. All of their worlds collide when Mario and Kei , with some help , gate crash a drugs deal between the Japanese and the Chinese to get the money they need to escape to a new life in Australia.

The violence level is turned up a notch as the cultural differences cause a rift between all parties and when Mr. Fushimi kidnaps a blind young girl named Lucia , who is the foster child of a previous lover of Mario’s , the Brazilian half breed returns to Tokyo with Kei to take care of unfinished business.

The intermittent spurts of intravenously injected acts of brutality are bloody splashes of Manga inspired moments. The from inside a toilet bowl point of view scene of a minder urinating is quickly followed by his bloodily pounded face being driven down into the pool of his own urine , and the startling in your face close up of a bullet to the head visceral explosion are two glorified moments of pure Yakuza trademark signature calling cards.

Throw into the mix a unique method of sampling cocaine by dusting a toothbrush and sweeping the molars with the white candy ( That any dental hygienist would get a six month high from polishing off ) , along with a cock fighting arena that has Matrix moves to crow about and the part of the post Neo Lithic cinematic mind that only Takashi Miike can call upon is well and truly opened up.

The cool persona of Mario is complimented by the gorgeous tranquility of his partner Kei and the bond between them is imbued by the magical binding personified by the appearances of butterfly landing and spider crawling upon their shoulders to metamorphosis into tattoos symbolizing the unity of each other in unique affirmation. There is nothing more refreshing in a Miike film than the always unexpected and totally off the wall explosions of surprise and when the confidently calm beauty of Kei calmly erupts with violent poise as she delivers what can be best described as a Russian Vodka hot kiss.

With Mr. Ko’s men beating up Kei and delivering her to his cavernous Tokyo hang out , that doubles as a cock fighting arena , the relentless Mr. Fushimi arrives on the scene to close the unfinished cocaine deal which is uniquely settled with a death dealing game of Ping Pong.

After Mario goes Frank Castle - Punisher style all guns a blazing at the Japanese strong hold to rescue Lucia , he catches up with Mr. Fushimi as the movie comes full circle with the two standing off Spaghetti Western style in a shoot out that has Fushimi growling out the line , ‘ Hey cool Brazilian bastard I wanna have fun just with us ’. With pulse pounding , blood pressure over load you would be forgiven for thinking that every last ounce of audacious adrenalin enriched story telling moment had unraveled to a conclusive resolution , but just when the message of Love is literally bled for , the envisaged ending is dealt a Takashi Tracheotomy. For hard hitting , non compromising , all action cross cultural carnage , ‘ The City Of Lost Souls ’ may not be spiritually uplifting but its damn near ‘Braziliant’ nonetheless.

Presentation :Widescreen Aspect Ratio Aprox 1:77:1
Release : Mei Ah
Coding : All Region
Sound : Dolby Digital Surround 5.1 / DTS
Extras : Single Layer Double Sided Disc / International Edition Japanese
Dialogue / Hong Kong Edition Cantonese Dialogue /
English Language Subtitles