'Yakuza Apocalypse' barrier is less language, more sense
Just another crazy day at a Japanese slaughterfest
AS THE TITLE promises, there is indeed widespread mobster slaughter in "Yakuza Apocalypse," but that ain't the half of it.
Some of the mobsters are vampires, so they are invincible in battle, and can hack up enemies with impunity. This gore makes them thirsty, so they commence to feeding on people.
And because the movie is subtitled, whenever a vampire bites into the neck flesh of a victim, we get this helpful prompt: "Suck!"
Subtitles, though, don't help us understand very much of what happens. "Yakuza Apocalypse" is a movie that is perhaps not meant to be understood so much as witnessed.
It contains the kind of demented action we've come to expect from Japanese nutjob Takashi Miike ("13 Assassins"), but it's also nonsensical to the point of being hallucinogenic, as if transcribed from someone's acid trip.
Yakuza vs. yakuza, vampire vs. yakuza - that much we get, but who's that guy dressed like someone from a Dutch Masters cigar box, carrying a coffin on his back? And what is that weapon in the cello case he lugs around? And why does he speak English?
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