Dead or Alive

Part of the NACHTBLENDE Special Series

“Unironically one of the hardest movies ever”
Nintschin on Letterboxd

Takashi Miike—one of the most prolific living directors—gave us not only the horror film AUDITION in 1999, which has long since become a classic, but also DEAD OR ALIVE. A film as if someone had thrown gangster cinema into a blender along with various nausea-inducing genre elements and hit “Apocalypse.” It’s a must-see if only for one of the most outrageous openings in film history.

At the center of this urban battlefield are two men who can’t stand each other. On one side is Ryūichi (Riki Takeuchi), a gangster boss and part of a world where violence is the only reliable currency. On the other side is Detective Jojima (Show Aikawa), a corrupt cop with a dying daughter and crushing debts to the yakuza. As the underworld threatens to spiral completely out of control, both men gradually lose everything that still connects them to the world of the living. In the end, only one question remains: Who will bite the dust first?