Dead Or Alive

Art-pulp of the highest order. From the synapse-stinging opening sequence — a non-stop barrage of bullets, blood, strippers and Chinese noodles — to its wonderfully absurd, apocalyptic finale, everything about Takashi Miike's brilliant and blood-soaked crime thriller comes as a shock: The sex, the violence, the degradation and the realization that an exciting young filmmaker has invigorated a moribund genre. It's a typical night in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo: A Chinese gangster is gunned down in the middle of his noodle dinner (you know exactly what he's been eating after a shotgun blasts open his stomach); a bleach-blond yakuza is knifed in the neck wh...