World Apartment Horror

The global success of Akira earned Otomo the freedom to make this live-action feature, which launched a cycle of films about the situation of Asian immigrants in Japan, most of them earnestly sociological. Otomo's film, though, is a yakuza horror comedy. The Black Dragon gang has its eye on a tumbledown apartment building rented to poor students and workers from Taiwan, China, Pakistan, the Philippines and Bangladesh. The first heavy sent to force the tenants out goes crazy. The second is Itta (Tanaka, now better known as a director under the name Sabu), who rushes in ego-first and finds himself facing not only uncowed Asians but also some very strong voodoo.