Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Dead or Alive 2 – Birds (2000)

Director: Takashi Miike

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Was the end of the world in the first Dead or Alive all a dream? Maybe not, because this time Aikawa and Takeuchi are back as angels. More exactly, they're boyhood friends and rival hitmen who run into each when both are hired to kill one racketeer. They figure it's time to retire from the yakuza fray and take a slow boat back to the island where they were both raised in an orphanage, reminiscing about the good times, the bad times and their favourite noodles. The only narrative issue of any consequence is how and where they will die this time. Miike's film (this time written to order) parodies its own predecessor, rhymes gunplay with conjuring tricks, considers the morality of Christian retribution and ponders the exhaustion of the yakuza genre. It might be best to file it under 'avant-garde'.

Author: TR 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Takashi Miike

Producer: Ken Takeuchi

Cast: Riki Takeuchi, Sho Aikawa, Edison Chen, Masato, Teah, Shinya Tsukamoto, Tomoro Taguchi, Ren Osugi full cast

Genre(s): Thrillers

Duration: 97 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.