Synopsis
A barkeeper saves a Yakuza boss' life and thus makes his way up in the organization. However, his fear of nothing soon causes problems.
2002 ‘新・仁義の墓場’ Directed by Takashi Miike
A barkeeper saves a Yakuza boss' life and thus makes his way up in the organization. However, his fear of nothing soon causes problems.
Goro Kishitani Narimi Arimori Ryôsuke Miki Yoshiyuki Daichi Hirotaro Honda Harumi Inoue Renji Ishibashi Shigeo Kobayashi Takashi Miike Yasukaze Motomiya Mikio Osawa Daisuke Ryū Harumi Sone Shun Sugata Rikiya Yasuoka Tetsurō Tamba Yūta Sone Jin Uchiyama Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi Shingo Yamashiro Shinji Yamashita Eiichi Furui Goro Kataoka Chisato Amate Ryo Amamiya Yudai Ishiyama Takashi Shikauchi Masahiko Hori Masaru Matsuda Show All…
New Graveyard of Honor, Cementerio Yakuza, Shin jingi no hakaba, 新仁義的墓場, Takashi Miikes: Graveyard of Honour, Якудза: Кладбище чести, 신 의리의 무덤, 新仁义的墓场
Downward spiral? But this psychopathic yakuza, Ishimatsu, unflinchingly washing the dishes while a massacre is going on in his restaurant, seemed to be dwelling at the bottom for quite some time already before we even met him. Can't self-destruct if there's no soul in this empty shell of a human being to begin with, isn't it way easier to just drag everyone down to your level? The film is a doped-up, bloody trip down melancholic lane, even felt romantic at times in an incredibly unhinged way, a more serious and disciplined side of miike I've never discovered until today (even lesson of the evil and 13 assassins have the occassional comic moments). The absence of the usual miike wackiness almost felt odd, but at the same time also highlights the director's versatility as an artist. Just when I thought I couldn't fell more in love with this wonderful man, he came waving and knocking on my door with blood-soaked hands.
Takashi Miike's brutally compelling tale about a Yakuza gone rogue will have you riveted to your seats in anticipation of the bloody aftermath! Gritty, ultra dark, uber violent glimpse of a man in self-destruct mode whose impending implosion takes those within range down with him!
Don't go in expecting the absurd, comic bookish, over the top gore and dark humor typical of Miike's films! Do expect stylized violence, an impressive and fascinating character study, and some Jazz riffs flowing through the film like blood from a nicked artery!
One of Takashi Miike's more mature and serious offerings that only serves to prove he is a formidable force when he is in the directors chair!
Thanks to this film I have become aware of Kinji Fukasaku's 1975 Classic "Graveyard of Honor" and will be experiencing it very soon!
Takashi Miike's gangster epic; his Martin Scorsese moment. Graveyard of Honor plays out like a cross between the director's own Black Society trilogy, Goodfellas, and Uncut Gems. The result is staggeringly brilliant, and a new favourite of mine which I imagine I'll continue to get more and more out of for years to come.
I have to confess I've never seen Kinji Fukasaku's original Graveyard of Honor (though it's on my watchlist), but I'm sure the high regard it's held in had a massive influence on how this remake is presented. For the most part, this isn't Miike's typically gonzo style of filmmaking; of all his movies, it most closely resembles stuff like Shinjuku Triad Society and Rainy Dog -…
As much as I love Ichi the Killer for its auteur, outrageous approach, it's nice to see an earnest Yakuza film from Takashi Miike. Graveyard of Honour is a candid, nihilistic peer into the lives of the Yakuza and manages to find a good balance between characterisation and action.
We follow newly initiated member Ishimatsu as he descends deeper and deeper into the dark underbelly of Japan's notorious organised crime syndicate. As the film progresses, we witness his behaviour become increasingly erratic and his actions become much more flagicious. Graveyard of Honour isn't devoid of violence and bloodshed, but also puts emphasis on its psychological underpinnings. The film is based on the life of a real-life Yakuza member and Gorô…
Takashi Miike's Graveyard of Honor is a masterpiece of restraint and maturity, gritty and dark but never overbearingly so. For any naysayers that dismiss Miike's films as just gory or exploitative schlock, I point them to this totally underappreciated gem. A catastrophic spiral into the dark and unknown; a visual and narrative representation of the seedy underbelly of the Yakuza and the innermost demons plaguing our titular anti-hero, Rikio Ishimatsu(..played amazingly by the awesome Gorô Kishitani).
Graveyard of Honor is not just some tour of the depths of Miike's violent imagination though. Miike genuinely explores the victims of all the horror as much as the creators of it. The criminal underground is an ugly and unforgiving world - this easily…
"As they are born of woman, even Yakuza are human beings, And as human beings, they exist as a part of social structure whose rules they must follow.
All there is for those who break those rules, is the demons path.
A path of impulse, of continuing to breathe, yet always wandering towards a demons death".
Not only does Takashi Miike's Graveyard of Honor serve as one of his very best films, but also as the perfect blueprint for how a remake should be done. By lovingly and respectfully paying homage to the original, while staying true to your very own path and using a contemporary setting to make your own point, with Miike here paralleling his protagonists rise and…
A dishwasher-cum-Yakuza "uncle" quickly points out to his peers how laughable their codes of conduct are. They attempt to destroy him to preserve their way, yet they do so by beating up women, cutting off thumbs, and a host of back- (and front-) stabbing. Y'know, honorable stuff. The lethargic jazz that runs under all this is a requiem for these gangsters' delusion.
Scars strengthen the sadism of the brutal man who sleeps here. An eerie bluntness in the acts of violence, which only operates to serve the beating heart unseen through in this grim interior world. Screaming beyond repair.
Something that is really important in a narrative is a protagonist to root for, someone that you want desperately to succeed in their endeavours to reach their goal. Not really rocket science when it comes to moviescripts but it happens far too often that this very thing makes a movie hard to watch.
Then of course we have the other side of the spectrum where the protagonist is so totally beyond redemption that you almost feel bad for watching. Like Rikio Ishimatsu (in a great performance by Gorô Kishitani) in Takashi Miikes remake or reimagining of Kinji Fukasakus Graveyard of honor. Here we have a total sociopath with no respect for human life or regards for anything but himself. He is…
It is fascinating how for all its large amount of grotesque detail, Miike's version is so more morose than Fukasaku's. We are still in a long walk towards death, but everyone knows the script, the tired inevitability bexcomes the point. For all his inventiveness, Miike has always felt like a filmmaker who arrived too late, a manneirist who seem to belong to the post new wave generation, so his Graveyard of Honor feels like one of his filmographies secret centers, his disconnect dramatized in a literal manner.Fukasaku and Miike's Graveyard of Honor climax with the same gesture that suggests both exhaustion and defiance (and gets to end with a similar brreak of the fourth wall use of ridiculous amount of artificial blood), but not only they are shot very diffrently, they play as radical different expressions of those feelings.
After recently watching the original Graveyard of Honor, I thought I'd return to the Miike version—a film that I loved upon first seeing it twenty years ago (twenty years ago... fucking hell). To my delight, this REALLY held up to my memories of it. It is such a teeth-grinding descent into bleakness, unrelenting in its violence. The brutality on display is genuinely sickening, some of the most angry scenes Miike has ever filmed. And it is all dragged along kicking and screaming by Goro Kishitani's deeply upsetting performance. Kishitani is such a barreling force of hell here, blank-faced and terrifying as he spirals downwards. The scene where he first shoots up heroin is monstrous. I have never seen a face…
A nihilistic yakuza flick in the same vein as the original Fukasaku film. Miike tosses out his crazy bizarre antics for a mostly straight crime picture. Follows the same beats of the original while still maintaining it’s own style. Probably Miike’s most vile character. Horrific shootouts and stabbings explode into ultra-violence. A blistering look at drug addiction. A relentlessly bleak tale of yakuza self destruction. Incredible and brutal stuff. Absolutely loved it.