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City of Lost Souls (2000)
Director: Takashi Miike
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
A popular novel by Seishu Hase (the sequel to Sleepless Town, filmed in 1998 by Lee Chi-Ngai) gets the full Miike treatment. What's left of the storyline is buried under an avalanche of absurdist comedy, over-ripe action, bent romance and movie parodies. Indeed, the author appears briefly to give the destruction of his book his blessing. Brazilian-Japanese Mario (first-time actor Teah) saves his Chinese girlfriend Kei (Reis) from being deported and then hijacks a ton of cocaine to finance their disappearance. Assorted cops, pervy Chinese triads and ruthless Japanese yakuza get in the way. Not a Miike classic, largely because it takes Mario's boring macho image at face value, but it does have compensations: the heretical vision of Tokyo as a multi-cultural whirl of street parties and ethnic broadcasting, the opening pastiche of Italian Westerns, and the out-of-nowhere sideswipe at The Matrix.Author: TR
Cast & crew
Director: Takashi Miike
Producer: Kazunari Hashiguchi, Toshiki Kimura
Cast: Teah, Michele Reis, Koji Kikkawa, Mitsuhiro Oikawa, Terence Yin, Akira Emoto, Eugene Nomura full cast
Duration: 105 mins
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